Comparison Study on Fuel Briquettes Made of Eco-Friendly Materials for Alternate Source of Energy

The access to energy is necessary to sustain human life and to achieve overall economic, social and environmental aspects of human development. Always there is a shortage of energy and hence there is constant need to search for alternative form of energy, which is new and totally different form from conventional traditional fuel types. The worldwide continued utilization of fossil fuels has in turn increased the environmental pollution which has become a threat to human kind. For the production of energy the biomass of plants can be used as an alternative source. There is a lot of demand for energy since many years and the biodegradable briquettes are frequently used as an alternate source of energy for small industries and domestic cooking applications. Normally for producing briquettes we follow a process called densification where the waste biomass is densified. This work is a step to deal with energy crisis and effective utilization of agricultural wastes. In this study manual densification of rice husk, saw dust, and coconut shell powder were tested with three different binding agents; dry cow dung, wheat flour, and paper pulp. Briquettes are made using different biodegradable materials and tests were conducted to compare the calorific value of the briquette. Coconut shell powder has been added along with saw dust and other binders which has increased the calorific value of the briquette significantly. It can be stated that briquettes made using the correct mixture of rice husk, saw dust, binders and coconut shell powder possibly will be able to address the energy crisis and environmental issues by increasing the calorific value of the briquettes.