Briquetting of Banana Plantation Industry Waste

Banana has been a fruit that is commonly consumed and loved for a long time. Along with the increasing need for banana fruit, a number of banana plantations were created and many of these banana plantations were large scale with up to tens of thousands of hectares. The biomass waste from this banana plantation will also be very large, such as banana trunk, bunches and leaves. Such a large volume of waste should be processed so that in addition to not polluting the environment and even causing disease in the banana tree itself, processing this biomass waste can also provide economic benefits. Briquette is an effective solution to overcome this waste. The briquette products of banana trunk, bunch and stem are used for fuel or energy sources.

To be able to briquette the biomass waste is reduced in size (down sizing ) to about 1 cm. The biomass waste with a small particle size is then squeezed to separate the water with a screw press. After the water can be separated from the waste until the water content is around 10%, then it can be briquetted. If the moisture content has not reached the moisture content, drying with a dryer can be done. The liquid separated from the waste is rich in potassium / kalium so it can be reused as liquid fertilizer for the banana plantation. Mechanical press briquette is the best option for briquette technology choices. In contrast to pelleting which only uses one technology, namely roller press, briquette there are 3 variations of technology that can be used, for more details, please read here. The briquette is also technically easier and economically cheaper to produce.

The trunk of a banana has many similarities to the stem of water hyacinth. Water hyacinth is an aquatic weed, so the number must be reduced or eliminated. Both are non-woody biomass materials such as trees. Some efforts have been made to compaction water hyacinth into pellets some time ago. Water hyacinth briquette is also very possible, in fact, the rule is that all materials that can be pelleted can certainly be briquette but not the other way around, meaning that all materials that can be briquetted cannot be pelleted easily. This is because in addition to the varied briquetting technology, the tolerance level for material properties is also looser, such as particle size and moisture content. The particle size is too fine which cannot be pelleted like pellets waste and can even be briquetted as well for larger particle sizes. Meanwhile, water content of up to 16% can still work well in briquette but cannot be done in pellet production. The level of briquette density can also be adjusted and generally briquettes are also denser than pellets, even up to 1.4 ton / m3.