Production of briquettes from local banana fermentation brew waste

Abstract

This report is about production of briquettes from local banana fermentation waste. Ripe peeled Bananas are kneaded by use of stiff grass until they are soft and pulpy to extract the juice by use of hand/ legs. The boiled water is then added to the juice which is then mixed with yeast and left to ferment. This leads to production of ethanol with large quantities of bio degradable organic waste such as stiff grass, pulp residue and banana peelings. They present a number of challenges when not well managed and a number of waste management options need to be availed if we are to keep environment safe such as briquetting. The objectives of this research project were to produce briquettes from local banana fermentation waste, determine the characteristics of local banana fermentation waste and test the characteristics of briquettes developed. The banana fermentation waste was collected from kiboga where there is high production of alcohol by fermentation of banana. Banana fermentation waste was carbonized using a step kiln to form bio char which was sieved and mixed with cassava starch as a binder. The mixture was compressed in a hollow cylindrical mold by use of low pressure technique of free hands. Proximate analysis of Banana fermentation waste and developed briquettes was carried out by use of thermo gravimetric analysis. The moisture content, ash content, volatile matter and fixed carbon in the carbonized briquettes were lower than those in banana fermentation waste raw material. These results were due to devolatization processes having occurred during pyrolysis pretreatment prior to briquette development Briquettes had a density of about 711.11 kg/m^3,a highest calorific value of 16.5576 MJ/kg and lowest calorific values of 12.9256 MJ/kg. They also had higher drop strengths of over 77%, porosity of 30.95% and ignition times of about 4 minutes. Water boiling test results indicated that 312 g of each of the briquettes was sufficient to boil 2.5 kg of water in less than 25 min during the cold start high power test.