Acacia Wood Charcoal Production As A Solution Usage of Acacia Wood In The Pandemic Era And Also Long Term

It is predicted that the corona outbreak is still long and even in Indonesia the cases continue to increase and until now there has been no visible decline in the curve. The peak of the outbreak is even predicted to be in 2021, this makes this outbreak more and more fatal. To reduce casualties and reduce the number of cases, a number of educational activities from early childhood to higher education are carried out online, as well as office activities from various companies. This condition reduces the need for the amount of paper significantly, because all these activities can be said to be paperless. Paper plants have reduced their paper production and have even closed them.

Acacia plantation or forest as industrial estate forest or community forest is the main source of this pulp and paper production. With the decline in paper production, the need for raw materials will automatically decrease. Acacia wood production is not selling well, so the forest management company also suffers because there is no income. This condition must be addressed immediately so that the company can run normally again. The use of acacia wood so that it becomes a value-added product is the solution to this problem.

Charcoal production can be perfect solution to this problem. With modern production, the quality and quantity of charcoal produced will be standard and stable and also will not pollute the environment in the production process. Quality acacia charcoal products are needed by a number of industries. Our charcoal production technology is even capable of producing charcoal quality that is higher than European standards, namely NF EN 1860-2. Besides that, we can also help with the marketing aspects of the charcoal product.

Compared to the production of wood pellets, which are mostly for power generation, the investment requirement is also much greater so that many companies are less interested. The volume of shipment of wood pellets is 10 thousand tons each time, so that the logistics and infrastructure aspects are also not easy and cheap. The need for electricity for wood pellets production is also large so it may be difficult to do in certain areas.

Of course everyone hopes that this corona outbreak will soon disappear. But anticipating as well as solutions for both the short and long term is certainly a good thing, so that it is expected to become a sustainable business. Acacia wood charcoal production can be done on a medium scale with the investment requirement is not too large. The need for electricity for the charcoal production plant is also small. For acacia forest management companies interested in acacia charcoal production, please contact eko.sbs@gmail.com

Production of Briquettes from EFB and MF of Palm Oil for Industrial Boiler Fuels

The need for biomass fuel is increasing all the time, palm kernel shells (PKS) are increasingly expensive and scarce, even though this palm kernel shell (PKS) is the main competitor for wood pellets. When the supply of PKS is limited due to high demand, the price is high, even closer to wood pellets. When this condition is achieved, wood pellets become more desirable than PKS because the quality of wood pellets is better than PKS. In addition to a more uniform shape and size, wood pellets are also drier with a moisture content of around 10%.

In this condition, actually it also opens up opportunities for briquette production. Briquettes and pellets actually use the same type of technology, namely biomass compaction or biomass densification. But briquette production is easier and cheaper than pellets. The level of flexibility of the raw material as a briquette material is also higher than that of pellets. Even some materials that are difficult to make pellets are easy to do with briquette. The size and shape of the briquettes are also more diverse as is the production technology. Briquettes for industrial boiler fuel are briquettes that can be an alternative between PKS and wood pellets.

Besides producing PKS waste, palm oil mills also produce solid waste in the form of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and mesocarp fibre (MF). A number of palm oil mills that use high efficiency boilers will produce a lot of MF. These wastes in the form of EFB and MF can be used as raw material for the production of briquettes. Industrial briquettes with puck shapes that are produced with mechanical press are not only easy to produce but also have a large capacity. The location of the briquette users, which is not too far from the palm oil mill, makes transportation costs cheap, and can compete with PKS and wood pellets.

 Industrial areas and also surrounded by a lot of palm oil mills and plantations such as in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia are very potential for the production of industrial briquettes. The briquettes produced are expected to have quality between the PKS and wood pellets as well as the price. The production of industrial briquettes from MF is easier than from EFB. Besides being wet, EFB also needs more effort to reach desired particle size so that it is suitable for the briquetting. Utilization of these wastes in addition to reducing environmental impact will also provide economic benefits.