Utilization of Waste Wood of Land Clearing For Sawdust Charcoal Briquette

The area of ​​oil palm oil plantations in Indonesia continues to grow every year. CPO and PKO needs continue to increase throughout the year. This is in line with the increasing edible oil and also world energy, especially renewable energy. The expansion of palm oil plantations is mostly done by land clearing, which of course must be legal or obtain permission from the authorities. The opening of the forest produces a lot of waste wood which should not be wasted but can be profitable.

The prospective palm oil entrepreneurs are also thinking hard to use waste wood into a profitable product. In addition to the large amount of waste wood, there is also the entrepreneur's mindset to maximize profits if it can be obtained in a short time. For example, every 1 hectare produces 50 tons of wood waste, so 10,000 hectares will produce 500,000 tons of wood waste, a very large amount of course.

One of the uses of wood waste so as to provide economic benefits is the production of sawdust charcoal briquette. Sawdust charcoal briquette has a very open market for Turkey, the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, for more details to read here. To produce high quality sawdust charcoal briquette products, the factor of consistency of raw materials must be fulfilled. The wood waste from clearing the forest can be grouped into the types of softwood and hardwood. Furthermore, for the raw material of sawdust charcoal briquette the composition of softwood with hard wood must be maintained in such a way that it can be fixed or consistent.

The quality of sawdust charcoal briquette from forest waste wood should not be lower compared to sawdust charcoal briquette made from wood waste processing or from sawmills. With quality that competes with sawdust charcoal briquette products made from wood waste processing and sawmill waste, the selling price of sawdust charcoal briquette automatically from forest wood waste also competes. Well, the problem is how can the production of sawdust charcoal briquette from forest wood waste be done? Doesn't that need electricity? How to get electricity in the middle of the forest?

The electricity is vital for the production of the sawdust charcoal briquette. Electricity from PLN is impossible for this location, whereas if with diesel oil (diesel fuel) as a driving fuel the generator is expensive, which is around IDR 15,000 for each liter. The solution is to produce electricity with wood waste itself. This means that some wood waste is used for sawdust charcoal briquette production and partly for electricity production. Gasifier or gasification technology can be used for electricity production from processing forest wood waste. Forest wood waste is made chip and used to fuel the gasifier.

Then what about the long-term business for Sawdust Charcoal Briquette? Does it also mean that it is finished after the wood clearing the forest clears is used up? Of course there are a number of things that can be done to keep the sawdust charcoal business going. One of the things that can be done is by making energy plantations from fast-rotating plants as a source of sawdust charcoal briquette. Fast rotating plants that can be planted for example is calliandra, for more detailed explanation, please read here.