Production of Pini Kay Briquette from Plywood and Veneer Factory Waste

Indonesia's plywood production is estimated at more than 10 million cubic meters each year, which is produced from hundreds of plywood factories, even Indonesia once dominated the world wood industry in the period 1980 to 1995. The existence of plywood factories in Indonesia has actually been around for a long time, but its development only became apparent after in 1972. After the period 1980-85 the number of factories increased rapidly. At that time there were no less than 110 medium to large scale factories in almost all provinces in Indonesia. There are five provinces as the largest plywood producers in Indonesia, namely East Java, East Kalimantan, Central Java, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan. And six other provinces that are starting to develop are Banten, Papua, Central Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Riau and Jambi. Most of the plywood is for the export market.

APKINDO (Indonesian Wood Panel Association) is a forum for plywood and veneer industry players. When APKINDO was formed on February 12, 1976, it was initiated by 13 plywood companies, while currently it has members from more than 125 industries spread throughout Indonesia. APKINDO aims to foster unity and togetherness and voice the interests of the plywood industry to utilize logs more efficiently, absorb more labor and increase added value. APKINDO's role continues to this day, one of which is to support the SVLK policy which is believed to be able to restore the positive image of Indonesian forestry in the eyes of the world, so that it will make it easier for Indonesian wood products, especially plywood, to win competition in the global market. 

The volume of wood waste in the plywood industry is quite large, reaching almost 55% or more than 5 million tons per year of national plywood production. The potential for this waste is quite large and has great potential to be processed into pini kay briquette (wood briquette screw type). Why should have to process it into pini kay briquette (wood briquette screw type)? Pini kay briquette is the choice for the solution to the plywood waste problem because apart from the production process being easier, the machine investment is also cheaper. This is because plywood factory wood waste is already dry so it does not require a drying process. Apart from being quite expensive, the dryer also have operational costs. It is also very possible to obtain high quality due to the low ash content, because the wood for plywood production has been debarked so that the content can be reduced to below 1%.

Veneer is a thin sheet of board used to make plywood. The veneers are arranged and glued together, in odd quantities, so that they become plywood. Many veneer manufacturers do not have plywood manufacturing units, but in general plywood factories have veneer production units. Veneers can be made by peeling (rotary cutting), slicing, sawing and sharpening. Indonesian veneer production is currently quite large as is the waste it produces. This waste will also have great added value by processing it into pini kay briquettes, just like the plywood waste above.

The pini kay briquette production process can use the plywood and veneer industry waste mentioned above. Before being compressed into pinikay briquettes in a briquette machine or screw press, the waste needs to be uniform in size to the size of sawdust and also have a dryness level of around 10%. Wood waste that is large in size needs to be reduced in size first and the dryness level also needs to be tried to reach the 10% range. With a screw press / extruder, wood biomass from these wastes can be compacted (densified) up to 1400 kg/m3 or much denser than wood pellets which are around 700 kg/m3. The pini kay briquette product can then be cut into certain sizes and ready to be marketed, especially for the export market. The need for pini kay briquettes is mainly as space heating fuel. Furthermore, this pini kay briquette can also be further processed into charcoal briquettes or commonly called sawdust charcoal briquettes. With this density, the burning time for briquetted charcoal is twice that of ordinary charcoal or more. Meanwhile, the main use of charcoal briquette is for barbeque.

For the plywood and veneer industry which produces up to thousands of tonnes of woody biomass waste every month, potentially becoming an environmental problem, the production of pini kay briquette could be an effective solution. And if there is a plywood and veneer industry that is interested in producing pini kay briquettes, we are ready to help the market.