Young Coconut Waste Processing: Briquetted or Pelleted!

When the weather is very hot like recently, drinking coconut water is very refreshing. This is because coconut water, apart from meeting the body's fluid needs, also meets the needs of electrolytes (ionically charged minerals found in cells, tissues and body fluids) which the body really needs. This electrolyte plays a role in supporting the activity of cells and body tissues and maintaining the balance of body fluid levels. When the body loses electrolytes due to physical activity or dehydration, consuming coconut water can help replace lost electrolytes and restore body fluid balance. There are many sellers of young coconut ice, especially in big cities. Apart from being sold in glasses, young coconut water is also sold in the form of whole young coconuts. The combination with young coconut flesh adds to the deliciousness of the drink. But it turns out that the waste from young coconuts is very polluting and has not been processed or used properly. The volume of young coconut waste is quite large, in fact, in the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi,  it is estimated that there is 15 tons/day of young coconut waste.

Young coconut waste can be processed into briquettes or pellets. Biomass densification technology is suitable for application as a solution for young coconut waste. The young coconut waste needs to be reduced in size (size reduction), namely with a shredder and hammer mill, then dried with a dryer before being compacted / densified into briquettes with a briquetting machine or into pellets with a pelletiser (pelleting machine). By briquetting or pelletizing the waste, it can be used as fuel or energy source for SMEs or boilers in industry. Many SMEs or processing industries can use this fuel. Apart from being environmentally friendly, it is also easy to use. Simple furnaces can be developed to use these briquettes and pellets.

Indonesia is famous for its seductive land of coconut islands. This is because the extent of coconut plantations in Indonesia reaches around 3.7 million hectares, most of which are smallholder plantations. The extent of these coconut plantations places Indonesia as the owner of the largest coconut plantations in the world. Coconut trees mainly grow along the coast, and indeed Indonesia also has the second longest coastline in the world, after Canada.

Reviving the Integrated Coconut Industry Part 6: Integration of Dessicated Coconut Production, Packaged Coconut Water, and Shell Charcoal

Basically the campaign to save the coconut plantation (tree of life) is to revive the integrated coconut industry. Damaged and not maintained of coconut plantations due to lack of funding to maintain and develop it in a sustainable manner.

Bioeconomy is defined as knowledge-based production and uses biological resources or living things to produce products, processes, and services in the economic sector within the framework of a sustainable economic system.

Dessicated coconut is not very popular in Indonesia. This product is used in the food industry for a mixture of cakes and chocolate so that it gives the flavor of coconut and much later became a favorite food in Europe. This product was originally discovered in Sri Lanka from Henry Vavasseur's drying experiment of grated coconut in 1888. There are 3 countries that are currently producing dessicated coconut, namely the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The need for this dessicated coconut product also continues to increase, namely recorded export of dessicated coconut in 1990 amounting to 151 thousand tons and in 2008 it increased to 248 thousand tons. In Indonesia alone, it is estimated that there are around 20 dessicated coconut (DC) factories.

DC is produced by drying grated coconut until the water content reaches a maximum of 3%. A dryer commonly used for DC production is a fluidized bed dryer. This dryer has advantages including high sensitivity for its operations, so it is commonly used for food and pharmaceutical products. Rotary dryer is a type of dryer that is also popular in the industry, especially in biomass processing such as wood pellets and briquettes, for more details, please read here. Rotary dryer types are more suitable for materials that are not too sensitive to heat, are not easily broken when dropped and heavier materials. That is why rotary dryers are more suitable for materials such as minerals, fertilizers and so on. Rotary dryer can be said to be heavy duty processing load and requires a wider space, while fluidized bed dryer for lighter-duty materials and requires less space.

For drying the grated coconut, heat energy is needed and for the operation of the plant's equipment such as shredding, conveyors, etc. electricity is needed. Both of these energies can be fulfilled by using a continuous pyrolysis unit. Coconut shell is used as a raw material for continuous pyrolysis, so that the output is in the form of charcoal, syngas and biooil. The charcoal can be sold for immediate use, made briquettes or activated carbon. For electricity production, syngas is used for fuel the gas engine (internal combustion engines) which convert heat energy into mechanical energy then into electrical energy. And biooil can be a source of heat both for boiling or sterilizing coconut meat as well as for a heat source for drying grated coconut with the heating media not in direct contact (indirect heating) with the grated coconut.

With the above pattern, the integrated coconut industry is energy independent or does not require energy supply from outside. This condition is very attractive especially for operations in remote locations. This energy independent industry practice is common in the palm oil industry. Palm oil mills usually burn shells and fiber for the production of electricity and steam. Why besides electricity, does the palm oil mill also produce steam? For more details, you can read here.

At present a number of palm oil mills have even used efficient boilers so that it is sufficient with fiber only and the shell can be sold or exported abroad. Though there is a better or more efficient way to produce electricity and steam, which is also by continuous pyrolysis, for more details read here. The shell, which is a biomass fuel, has properties almost similar to wood pellets at a cheaper price and is still abundantly available. Japan and Korea are the two countries in Asia that are most striking in the use of biomass energy related to climate change mitigation and global warming.

Coconut shell charcoal is a sought-after product, so the price is also increasing every year in accordance with market laws, namely supply-demand. The production of coconut shell charcoal will provide an attractive additional income compared to just being burned to ash and making a zero waste integrated coconut industry.

The DC industry is usually large enough in scale or production capacity to produce quite a lot of coconut water. Coconut water can be processed into bottled coconut water, which also requires electricity and heat in the production process. Electricity and heat production can use coconut fiber as fuel. Burning coconut fiber to heat the boiler and produce electricity, similar to the palm oil mill. Steam is produced to heat or sterilize the coconut water. The demand for bottled coconut water increased rapidly, from 484 thousand liters in 2009 to 71.7 million liters in 2015, or 141 times.

Reviving the Integrated Coconut Industry Part 5: Integration of Production of Shell Charcoal, White Copra and Nata De Coco

Basically the campaign to save the coconut plantation (tree of life) is to revive the integrated coconut industry. Damaged and not maintained of coconut plantations due to lack of funding to maintain and develop it in a sustainable manner.

Bioeconomy is defined as knowledge-based production and uses biological resources or living things to produce products, processes, and services in the economic sector within the framework of a sustainable economic system.

Almost all traditional charcoal producers have wasted a lot of energy in the carbonization process. Why is that ? Is not energy really needed in almost all industries, even in a number of industries, energy is the highest cost component? Besides being inefficient, isn't that the same as wasting money in vain? That is because in the production of charcoal with a conversion of around 25%, more than half is wasted. As an illustration like the following count. For example, we take a 25% conversion, with 10 tons of coconut shell raw material, 2.5 tons of charcoal is produced. Coconut shell with a calorific value of around 4,500 kcal / kg, means that 10 tons of raw material amounts to 45,000,000 kcal. Whereas coconut shell charcoal with a heating value of around 8,000 kcal / kg, then 2.5 tons of charcoal will have a heating value of 20,000,000 kcal / kg. Based on these calculations more than 50% of energy is lost or only wasted, which is 25,000,000 kcal. If the conversion to charcoal is lower or 20% then the energy loss is even greater, namely 29,000,000 kcal or more than 60%. Of course it is very inefficient.

If the energy can be used optimally, of course the industry will become efficient and competitive. In the coconut industry where all its parts can be utilized, then it becomes very interesting. That is because the excess energy or energy that was previously only discharged can be used again for the processing of the next products or called the term waste heat recovery. White copra and nata de coco production can utilize the waste heat so that it no longer needs an external energy supply. With this concept, there are three products obtained, namely coconut shell charcoal, white copra and nata de coco.

The use of coconut shell charcoal that can be as direct fuel, or further processed into briquettes or activated charcoal. Besides being used in domestic or local markets, coconut shell charcoal is also an export commodity. Noted the export value of Indonesian coconut shell charcoal reaches 250 thousand tons / year, while by making briquettes and activated charcoal, greater value added will be obtained. Coconut shell charcoal briquette exports reach around 20 thousand tons / year while active charcoal is still relatively low at 25 thousand tons / year while providing the highest added value. Whereas white copra is the raw material for making coconut oil and for the main export destinations are India and Bangladesh. During its heyday, Indonesia was once the largest copra exporter in the world. As the use of coconut oil decreases, copra exports also decline. The world's white copra exports were 137 thousand tons in 2013 (APCC-Coconut Statistical Yearbook, 2013) with a total value of more than 2 trillion rupiah. Whereas nata de coco in general makes packaged drinks and many products can be found in various shops to supermarkets. The needs of nata de coco tend to increase with the population or more specifically in line with the growth of the food and beverage industry which reaches above 8% every year. It is estimated that business value for national nata de coco can reach 1.6 trillion rupiah, if managed properly.

Integrated Coconut Industry Diagram

In the carbonization process (pyrolysis) which is a partial oxidation with limited air even without air, a certain amount of gas will be produced. And because it is not a perfect combustion process, the gas is not only CO2 and H2O, but a number of combustible gas and can also be used as fuel. In the process of copra production, it is necessary to do a drying process of about 50% to 5% moisture content by indirect heating (indirect heating) then the gas produced from the carbonization process (pyrolysis) can be used as a source of energy. Likewise, this energy can also be used to cook coconut water which is used for the production of nata de coco. And if the nata de coco is further processed into a variety of packaged drinks it needs to be cooked at least 3 times for the impurities and soften the fiber. The cooking process also requires energy and gas from carbonization as an energy source. By minimizing these energy costs, production costs can be reduced and business profits increased. For those who are interested in applying the above concept, please contact us at cakbentra@gmail.com

Reviving the Integrated Coconut Industries in Indonesia

The absence of a market causes the coconut industry to not develop, stagnate and even tend to die. Although various products can be produced from coconut fruit but with a small product uptake is not able to turn on the coconut industry. When the products that the demanded by market are already obtained, such as CPO in the palm oil industry, it is possible for the coconut industry to stretch and rise and be taken into account. Modernization of technology also needs to be done so that the coconut industry becomes a modern industry even though the production capacity is not as big as the palm oil industry. Another factor needed to revive the integrated coconut industry and this is almost the same experienced by all industries in general that is the availability of energy. So that to meet the energy needs, not all coconut fruit should be processed, but some are used to produce energy, for example coconut fiber, because the economic value is the lowest.

Activated carbon is a product that has a very good market potential and with continuous pyrolysis technology followed by activation, the product can be produced without the need for additional external energy. Thus the activated carbon plant can stand on its own using its coconut shell waste. But to get the coconut shell, someone must process the coconut fruit. Products such as VCO, dedicated coconut, and coconut milk can be the main products so that the processing of the coconut fruit. The coconut water can be processed into isotonic drinks or nata de coco. The use of coir-fired boilers (if in a palm oil mill, high efficient boilers only use the fiber) or even fronds and leaves can be used for electricity and steam production. Similar to operations in palm oil mills as well, namely electricity can be used to move a variety of mechanical equipment for processing coconut and steam as well as a source of heat, especially if the processing of the coconut fruit does need it.

With the above pattern, the coconut industry can be operated even though the location is in a remote area and there is no electricity network there, a place where coconut plantations are located. Indonesia as a seduction country of coconut islands with the plantation area of almost 4 million hectares and the widest in the world today or the equivalent of 1/3 of palm oil plantations should be also the leader in the world coconut industry.