Production of fuel briquettes from olive refuse and paper mill waste

Some processes have been widely applied to biomass in order to take advanta ge of its energy potential. In particular, these processes are based on pyr olysis or gasification. In this study, briquetting was applied to olive ref use and paper mill waste to form fuel briquettes. For this purpose, the par ticle sizes of both biomass samples were decreased to -250 mum and then the y were briquetted in a steel die under pressure between 150 and 250 MPa at ambient temperature. Effects of the moisture content of the biomass samples and briquetting pressure on the shatter index, compressive strength, and w ater resistance of the briquettes obtained were investigated. This study sh owed that the mechanical strength of the briquettes produced only from the olive refuse was not high enough. On the other hand, strong briquettes were produced using paper mill waste. When olive refuse was blended with fibrou s paper mill waste, briquettes with sufficiently high mechanical strength c ould be produced. Burning profiles of the samples were derived applying der ivative thermogravimetry technique under dynamic dry air atmosphere up to 1 273 K with a heating rate of 40 K.min(-1) and then combustion characteristi cs of the briquettes were compared. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All righ ts reserved.