Assessment of Physical Properties of Briquettes Made of Mixtures of Selected Plant Raw Materials and Post-Fermentation Waste

Abstract

Searching for renewable energy sources causes the increase in the interest in obtaining and processing of plant biomass for energy purposes. One of the methods of using biomass is to converse it into solid biofuels in the form of briquettes. The research covered briquette production with the use of the following plant raw materials: straw of spring crop mixture (wheat with barley – 50/50%) and oat straw and post-fermentation waste. Samples of fragmented straw with addition of post-fermentation waste were prepared in three various weight participation i.e.: 90/10%, 80/20% i 50/50%. The paper presents an assessment of physical properties of briquettes manufactured from the investigated mixtures of plant raw materials with an addition of post-fermentation waste in the hydraulic piston briquetting machine. We determined the moisture of raw materials and waste, length, diameter and mass of manufactured briquettes as well as their specific density and mechanical strength. We found out that along with the increase of the mass participation of post-fermentation waste in the accepted mixtures of plant materials from 10 to 50% their length increased from 5 to 25% and the mass from 1 to 12%. On the other hand, specific density of briquettes increased from 18 to 24% for grain mixtures and from 3 to 7% for oat straw. Mechanical strength of briquettes was within 88.3-90.6% for grain mixture and 83.6-87.1% for oat straw.