DOI: 10.3303/CET24108001 Paper Received: 19 June 2023; Revised: 15 July 2023; Accepted: 15 September 2023 Please cite this article as: Utami G.S., Ningsih E., 2024, The Impact of Composition and Type of Material on the Characteristics of Fuel Briquttes, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 108, 1-6 DOI:10.3303/CET24108001 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 108, 2024 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.cetjournal.it Guest Editors: Carlo Pirola, Antonio Espuña Copyright © 2024, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. ISBN 979-12-81206-08-3; ISSN 2283-9216 The Impact of Composition and Type of Material on the Characteristics of Fuel Briquttes Gati Sri Utamia, Erlinda Ningsihb,* aDepartement of Civil Engineering, Adhi Tama Institute of Technology Surabaya,Indonesia bDepartement of Chemical Engineering, Adhi Tama Institute of Technology Surabaya,Indonesi Erlindaningsih84@itats.ac.id The significant energy need for alternative fuels is caused by the increasingly depleting fossil fuels. One alternative material that has the potential to be used as a substitute for fuel is agricultural waste. This research was conducted to determine the characteristics of briquettes by varying the composition of rambutan skin charcoal and coconut shell charcoal. Briquettes are made from coconut shells and rambutan skin. Molasses is used as a charcoal adhesive. Briquettes are made in the laboratory using a carbonization process using a furnace. . Variations in the composition of rambutan skin and coconut shell charcoal are 10:90, 20:80, 30:70, 40:60, 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20, and 90:10. This article was conducted to study the calorific value, water content, ash content, and fixed carbon briquettes from coconut shell charcoal and rambutan skin. The results showed that mixing coconut shell charcoal and rambutan skin increased the calorific value and ash content. The best composition is 10:90 for rambutan skin and coconut shell charcoal with a calorific value of 6297.09 cal/gram. 1. Introduction Current energy needs continue to increase and continue to increase, while to meet demand, they still depend on fossil fuels, whose availability is starting to run out. This needs to be done alternatively to meet fuel needs, namely looking for renewable energy sources that are efficient, cheap and easy to obtain (Suttibak and Loengbudnark, 2018; Kongprasert et al., 2019). Biomass energy is a form of renewable energy source that is easily obtained and abundant. Biomass is fuel obtained from agricultural, forestry, or organic waste. Some examples of materials that can be made as biomass fuel are used wood, fruit peel residues, forest remnants, sawdust, rice husks, and agricultural waste residues (Brunerová et al., 2018). Biomass fuel in several countries in the African continent has increased the use of charcoal. Even in Ghana, 97% of the population, 67% still depend on charcoal (Olatunji et al. 2021; Song et al. 2020). The main advantages of briquette fuel are less volume, cheap transportation costs, complete fuel combustion, not easily damaged and easy to store (Wang et al., 2018). In Indonesia, the availability of agricultural waste is very supportive to meet the demand for biomass fuel as a substitute for coal, which is starting to decrease (Kan et al., 2016). Some examples of agricultural waste that have the potential to be used as raw material for biomass fuel are sugar cane peel (Ayuningtiyas et al., 2020), durian peel, bintaro peel, and sugarcane bagasse (Mirzayanti et al. 2021). The availability of this leather waste is abundant, and the calorific value obtained is above 5000 cal/gram, meaning it has a calorific value above coal. An economic feasibility analysis has been carried out for this use and shows that making briquettes from agricultural waste is economically feasible with a return on capital of 3.42 years and a net profit of 147.402 ϵ/year (Sahoo et al. 2018). Investigation of the combination of biomass raw materials, modification, composition can also improve the quality of the briquettes produced. One of the important parameters that influences the quality of briquettes from quality analysis is composition. The results as reported by (TT et al. 2022). reduce the water content by 1.5% and can also increase the ash content by more than 10%. Apart from that, the material used as raw material can also influence the analysis of briquette quality(Srinivasan et al. 2022). This is also directly related to the calorific value of the briquettes, so it is necessary to set the right composition and use good raw materials to produce the best quality briquettes. 1 mailto:Erlindaningsih84@itats.ac.id Based on the brief description above, it is necessary to study the influence of the composition of charcoal raw materials from coconut shells and rambutan skin waste. Coconut shell charcoal, which has a high calorific value, can increase the economic value of abundant rambutan shell charcoal, thereby reducing the volume of waste in the environment and also improving the quality of briquettes. 2. Method 2.1 Research Material This study uses coconut shell and rambutan peel waste materials as raw materials for biomass, which will be used as charcoal. The adhesive used is molasses, which is a waste from the sugar manufacturing process 2.2 Equiment The leading equipment in this research is a furnace muffle as seen in figure 1, and this tool is used for the carbonization process and a manual briquette press with the UNP (U-Channel) type. 2.3 Research Prosedure This briquette is made using coconut shell and rambutan peel. The coconut shell and rambutan peel were dried before the pyrolysis process to reduce the water content to ±10%. The two dried skins are put into the furnace for pyrolysis processing. Coconut shells were carbonized at 450°C, and rambutan shells at 400°C. The charcoal obtained was reduced to a particle size of 100 mesh. Variations in composition between rambutan peel charcoal and coconut shell were 10:90, 20:80, 30:70, 40:60, 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20, and 90:10. Gluing is done by adding 20% molasses. The printing process uses a manual briquette press with the UNP (U-Channel) type. The resulting briquettes are 2 x 3 cm in size. The resulting briquettes are tested; the tests carried out are water content, ash content, fixed carbon, ignation time, burning rate (Fikri & Sartika, 2018), water vaporizing capacity and calorific value. 3. Result and Discussion The composition of charcoal from coconut shells and rambutan skin dramatically influences the quality of briquettes. The results indicate that the more mass ratio of coconut shell charcoal composition can increase the calorific value. In general, the briquettes produced meet the standards of SNI 01-6235-2000. The resulting product is presented in figure 2 with a diameter of 20 cm, a thickness of 10 cm and a weight of 90 gr. Figure 1: furnace muffle Figure 2: briquette 3.1 Moisture content The Moisture content in a briquette is a parameter that affects the quality and has an inverse relationship with the calorific value. This means that the moisture content is low, and the calorific value is high. In addition, the moisture content also affects the density, durability, and storage. The moisture content obtained by varying the coconut shell charcoal and rambutan peel composition is below 5%. In Figure 3. it can be seen that the high 2 composition of rambutan charcoal can increase the moisture content in the briquettes. The lowest water content is 4.05% at a composition of 10:90 for rambutan peel charcoal: coconut shell charcoal. 3.2 Ash content Briquettes from coconut shell charcoal and rambutan peel are higher than coal briquettes. High ash content depends on the type of biomass raw material used because of the chemical content contained, such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron silica, and copper. Ash content is an undesirable component in the combustion process. This is because it can cause slag deposits in combustion equipment and also reduce the calorific value of the briquettes(Mendoza Martinez et al. 2019). The ash content presented in Figure 4 was the lowest at 4.83% at 10:90 rambutan shell charcoal: coconut shell charcoal and the highest at 90:10 rambutan shell charcoal: coconut shell charcoal at 15.94%. 3.3 Fixed carbon The content also influences high fixed carbon in the charcoal raw material used; a high value indicates good fuel quality. The fixed carbon value is directly proportional to the heating value, so high fixed carbon can cause a longer burning time (Kpalo et al. 2021). The proximate analysis results show that the highest fixed carbon value is 52.36% and the lowest is 33.97%, which can be seen in Figure 5. 3.4 Calorific value The calorific value obtained based on Figure 6 shows that the highest calorific value of briquettes is from coconut shell charcoal and rambutan shell charcoal, which is 6297.09 cal/gram. The calorific value obtained shows that briquettes with the main ingredients from coconut shell charcoal and rambutan peel waste have the potential to be used as briquettes. A high calorific value indicates better fuel quality (Trubetskaya et al. 2019). This correlates with the content of bound carbon in the briquettes. 3.5 Ignation Time Table 1 shows the ignition timing for the composite variations. Based on the results, the reduced content of the coconut shell can reduce the ignition time. This shows that the pores formed by the presence of rambutan peel are increasingly open, which causes air cavities to enter (Magnago et al., 2020). The lowest ignition time occurred at a ratio of 90:10 coconut shell rambutan skins, namely 2 minutes, while the highest ignition timing occurred at a ratio of 10:90 coconut shell rambutan peel, namely 10 minutes. 3.6 Burning Rate The burning rate increased with the amount of rambutan peel, as shown in Figure 7. The burning rate ranged from 5 – 13 minutes, lower than that obtained for the composite of bagasse powder and rice husk, which was 29 – 46.4 minutes. The decrease in the burning rate was caused by the increased porosity of the briquette charcoal, which occurred with the addition of rambutan peels (Islam et al., 2014). Figure 3: Graph of Comparison of Composition and Moisture Content Figure 4: Graph of Comparison of Composition and Ash Content 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 M oi st ur e C on te nt (% ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 As h C on te nt (% ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 3 Figure 5: Graph of Comparison of Composition and Fixed Carbon Table 1: The ignition time for the produced composite briquettes Composition Ignition Time 90:10 2 80:20 3 70:30 4 60:40 5 50:50 6 40:60 7 30:70 8 20:80 9 10:90 10 3.7 Water vaporizing capacity An illustration to show the evaporation capacity of water is presented in Figure 8 (Oyelaran et al. 2018). The results showed that the highest water evaporation capacity was in the ratio 10 : 90 of coconut shell rambutan peels, namely 0.93l/kg. The lowest is 90:10 coconut shell rambutan skin, which is 0.41 l/kg. The material used can affect the water vaporizing capacity, because coconut shell charcoal contains a lot of carbon chains. Figure 7: Graph of Comparison of Composition and Burning Rate Figure 8: Graph of Comparison of Composition and Water Vaporazing Capacity 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Fi xe d C ar bo n( % ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 C al or ifi c Va lu e( % ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 B ur ni ng R at e( kg /h ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 10 : 90 20 : 80 30 : 70 40 : 60 50 : 50 60 : 40 70 : 30 80 : 20 90 : 10 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 W at er v ap or iz in g ca pa ci ty (l/ kg ) Rambutan Peel:Coconut Shell 4 4. Conclusions The tested coconut shell charcoal briquettes refer to the SNI standard 01-6235-2000 for water content, ash content, fixed carbon, and calorific value. For the parameters that have been tested, the ash content parameter does not meet the SNI standard. The best composition was obtained at 10:90 for rambutan skin and coconut shell. This composition has the best water content characteristics of 4.05%, Fixed carbon 52.36%, calorific value 6297.09 cal/gram, ignition time 2 minutes, burning time 13 minutes, and evaporation capacity of water 0.93l/kg. One of the steps that can be tried to improve the quality of the carbon content is to rearrange the composition of the mixture of raw materials and adhesives used. Methods and technology need to be developed to optimize the quality of briquettes. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Higher Education for financial support through the PDUPT (2021) research scheme. Author too recognized the Adhi Tama Institute of Technology Surabaya (ITATS) to provide the necessary laboratory equipment and facilities for this work. References Ayuningtiyas, Gina, Faris Harditya, and Erlinda Ningsih. 2020. “Production of Briquette Made of Sugarcase Bagasse and Dry Leaves Mixture by Microwave Torrefaction Using Tapioca Flour as Adhesive” 2020: 140– 44. https://doi.org/10.11594/nstp.2020.0521. Brožek, M., A. Nováková, and M. Kolářová. 2012. “Quality Evaluation of Briquettes Made from Wood Waste.” Research in Agricultural Engineering 58 (1): 30–35. https://doi.org/10.17221/33/2011-rae. Brunerová, Anna, Hynek Roubík, and Milan Brožek. 2018. “Bamboo Fiber and Sugarcane Skin as a Bio- Briquette Fuel.” Energies 11 (9). https://doi.org/10.3390/en11092186. Davies, R. 2013. “Ignition and Burning Rate of Water Hyacinth Briquettes.” Journal of Scientific Research and Reports 2 (1): 111–20. https://doi.org/10.9734/jsrr/2013/1964. Fan, Yongsheng, Yixi Cai, Xiaohua Li, Haiyun Yin, Ning Yu, Rongxian Zhang, and Weidong Zhao. 2014. “Rape Straw as a Source of Bio-Oil via Vacuum Pyrolysis: Optimization of Bio-Oil Yield Using Orthogonal Design Method and Characterization of Bio-Oil.” Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis 106: 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2013.12.011. Fikri, Elanda, and Citra Sartika. 2018. “Study on the Use and Composition of Bio-Charcoal Briquettes Made of Organic Waste” 19 (2): 81–88. Islam, Md Hamidul, Md Mosharraf Hossain, and Md Abdul Momin. 2014. “Development of Briquette from Coir Dust and Rice Husk Blend: An Alternative Energy Source.” International Journal of Renewable Energy Development 3 (2): 119–23. https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.3.2.119-123. Kan, Tao, Vladimir Strezov, and Tim J. Evans. 2016. “Lignocellulosic Biomass Pyrolysis: A Review of Product Properties and Effects of Pyrolysis Parameters.” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57: 1126–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.185. Kongprasert, Nattapong, Pilada Wangphanich, and Anuwat Jutilarptavorn. 2019. “Charcoal Briquettes from Madan Wood Waste as an Alternative Energy in Thailand.” Procedia Manufacturing 30: 128–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2019.02.019. Kpalo, Sunday Yusuf, Mohamad Faiz Zainuddin, Latifah Abd Manaf, and Ahmad Muhaimin Roslan. 2021. “Evaluation of Hybrid Briquettes from Corncob and Oil Palm Trunk Bark in a Domestic Cooking Application for Rural Communities in Nigeria.” Journal of Cleaner Production 284 (xxxx): 124745. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124745. Magnago, Rachel Faverzani, Susana Claudete Costa, Maria Julia de Assunção Ezirio, Vitoria de Godoy Saciloto, Gabriel Oscar Cremona Parma, Emerson Silveira Gasparotto, Affonso Celso Gonçalves, Alessandra Yula Tutida, and Ricardo Luis Barcelos. 2020. “Briquettes of Citrus Peel and Rice Husk.” Journal of Cleaner Production 276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123820. Mendoza Martinez, Clara Lisseth, Ekaterina Sermyagina, Angélica de Cassia Oliveira Carneiro, Esa Vakkilainen, and Marcelo Cardoso. 2019. “Production and Characterization of Coffee-Pine Wood Residue Briquettes as an Alternative Fuel for Local Firing Systems in Brazil.” Biomass and Bioenergy 123 (June 2018): 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2019.02.013. Mirzayanti, Y. W., B. Bhismoko, M. Q. Fathurrahman, and E. Ningsih. 2021. “Parameter Variation of Microwave Torrefaction Time of Blotong and Bagasse Briquettes.” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2117 (1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/2117/1/012022. 5 Olatunji, Obafemi O., Paul A. Adedeji, Stephen Akinlabi, Nkosinathi Madushele, Felix Ishola, and Abraham K. Aworinde. 2021. “Improving Classification Performance of Skewed Biomass Data.” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1107 (1): 012191. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/1107/1/012191. Oyelaran, O A, B J Olorunfemi, O M Sanusi, A O Fagbemigun, and O Balogun. 2018. “Investigating the Performance and Combustion Characteristics of Composite Bio-Coal Briquette.” Journal of Materials and Engineering Structures 5: 173–84. Ruslinda, Yenni, Fitratul Husna, and Arum Nabila. 2017. “Karakteristik Briket Dari Komposit Sampah Buah, Sampah Plastik High Density Polyethylene (Hdpe) Dan Tempurung Kelapa Sebagai Bahan Bakar Alternatif Di Rumah Tangga.” Jurnal Presipitasi : Media Komunikasi Dan Pengembangan Teknik Lingkungan 14 (1): 5. https://doi.org/10.14710/presipitasi.v14i1.5-14. Sahoo, Kamalakanta, E M Ted Bilek, Richard Bergman, Sudhagar Mani, United States, and Forest Service. 2018. “Techno-Economic Analysis of Producing Solid Biofuels and Biochar from Forest Residues Using Portable Systems,” 1–37. Song, Xiaobing, Shouyu Zhang, Yuanmo Wu, and Zhongyao Cao. 2020. “Investigation on the Properties of the Bio-Briquette Fuel Prepared from Hydrothermal Pretreated Cotton Stalk and Wood Sawdust.” Renewable Energy 151: 184–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2019.11.003. Srinivasan, Gokul Raghavendra, Aditya Mahajan, Rajiv Seth, and Rakesh Mahajan. 2022. “Review A Critical Review on Briquettes Developed from Spent Coffee Ground Wastes Abstract :,” no. December. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202212.0138.v1. Suttibak, S., and W. Loengbudnark. 2018. “Production of Charcoal Briquettes from Biomass for Community Use.” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 297 (1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1757- 899X/297/1/012001. Trubetskaya, Anna, James J. Leahy, Elena Yazhenskikh, Michael Müller, Peter Layden, Robert Johnson, Kenny Ståhl, and Rory F.D. Monaghan. 2019. “Characterization of Woodstove Briquettes from Torrefied Biomass and Coal.” Energy 171: 853–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.01.064. TT, Ajith Kumar, Neeraj Mech, S. T. Ramesh, and R. Gandhimathi. 2022. “Evaluation of Composite Briquettes from Dry Leaves in Energy Applications for Agrarian Communities in India.” Journal of Cleaner Production 350 (December 2020): 131312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.131312. Wang, Yu, Kai Wu, and Yu Sun. 2018. “Effects of Raw Material Particle Size on the Briquetting Process of Rice Straw.” Journal of the Energy Institute 91 (1): 153–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joei.2016.09.002. 6 The Impact of Composition and Type of Material on the Characteristics of Fuel Briquttes