Project outcome
- Effective improvement of the potentials of sugarcane bagasse pith – fiber fractions for briquetting in industrial and domestic applications
Focus areas
- Comparison of the briquetting behaviour of unseparated bagasse with those of the separate pith and fiber fractions
- Formulation of bagasse as briquettes for different thermal applications and as feedstock for the hybrid production and enhancements of other biomass briquette materials
Bagasse is valuable as a source of energy but it has a low bulk density, is prone to deterioration during storage and poses a risk of spontaneous combustion during bulk storage. In order to overcome these problems so as to make it more readily available for extended use within sugarcane factories and for other heating requirements, cost-effective methods of briquetting need to be developed. The production of cheap bagasse briquettes could reduce the demand for (and cost of) external fuels such as coal at sugarcane factories and could also potentially be sold, generating additional revenue at certain factories. This project has produced and characterised briquettes with various bagasse fractions and binders and has developed a recipe for the most effective method of manufacture.
Dr Andrew Eloka-Eboka
School of Chemical Enigeering, University of KwaZulu-Natal
