Abstract
Carbonization technique (muffle furnace at 450 °C) was applied on the orange bagasse (solid wastes) to produce charcoal briquettes, using corn starch as binder and a 1.0 ton-force manual hydraulic press. The tests applied on the orange charcoal powder and on the orange charcoal powder with corn starch (5, 10 and 15 % w/w) were the proximate analysis, the elemental analysis and the determination of the higher heating value HHV). On the other hand, some tests were carried out on the orange charcoal briquettes, which were the determination of density and the mechanical strength (compressive strength and friability). The results showed that the obtained orange charcoal (OC) has a significant high heating value of 29,000 J/g, and can be used in different processes. When mixed with the binder, its HHV has a small decrease, 27,611 J/g to OC with 5 % of corn starch, 26,857 J/g to OC with 10 % of corn starch and 26,476 J/g to OC with 15 % of corn starch, but still they are considered high values. The fixed carbon content of dehydrated orange bagasse increased from 11.444% to 68.782 % when it was charred, but it was also observed that fixed carbon content of the charcoal had a maximum decrease of 67 % due to adding the binder (15 % w/w). The briquette that had the highest fixed carbon content was the one with 5% of binder, since this one has the highest amount of pure carbon. However, the briquette with the highest mechanical strength was the one with 15 % of corn starch in its composition. With respect to the carbon content in its composition, all the briquettes showed high content of it (70.67 %, 69.07 % and 70.90 %, respectively to 5, 10 and 15 % of corn starch). The briquette with 10 % of binder also presented a satisfactory mechanical strength, having a loss of 14,932 % in friability testing, ranking as slightly friable and resisted a pressure of 1.406 MPa in the compression test. Thus, the charcoal briquette with 10 % of corn starch is appropriate for use in domestic and commercial way.
