CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 37, 2014 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Eliseo Ranzi, Katharina Kohse- Höinghaus Copyright © 2014, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., I SBN 978-88-95608-28-0; I SSN 2283-9216 Production and Characterization of Fuel Briquettes from Banana Leaves Waste Bianca G. de Oliveira Maia a *, Ozair Souza b , Cintia Marangoni b , Dachamir Hotza a , Antonio Pedro N. de Oliveira a , Noeli Sellin b a Graduate Program in Materials Science and Engineering – PGMAT, Federal University of Santa Catarina, 88040 900, Florianópolis-SC, Brazil. b Masters in Process Engineering, University of Joinville Region – UNIVILLE, 89219 710 , Joinville-SC, Brazil. bianca.maia@outlook.com The use of agricultural and agro-industrial waste as biomass fuel for power generation like briquettes can be an alternative solution to the problems related at their disposal. Briquettes produced from lignocellulosic waste, through a simple process and low cost are an excellent source of cheap energy and environmentally correct, in many cases, ideal for replacing fossil fuels in use today, with significant economic and environmental advantages. The banana cultivation generates a significant amount of waste, but little used, it would be important to add value to them. In this work banana semi-dried leaves were crushed to particles with sizes between 2 and 5 mm and its moisture content was determined. The briquettes were produced in a hydraulic press with compaction pressure of 18 MPa and two different compression times and were evaluated by proximate and ultimate chemical analysis, high heating value (HHV), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTA), linear shrinkage, mechanical compressive strength, bulk and energy density. Briquettes presented moisture content of 7.2 %, high contents of carbon (44.3 %) and volatile matter (75.3 %), low sulphur and nitrogen contents and HHV of 17.7 MJ/kg. These results are similar for other biomass used to produce briquettes. Under combustion in TGA and DTA analysis, the briquettes showed high loss mass and maximum energy release between 200 and 500 °C. The mechanical compressive strength for 1 second compression was 5.3 MPa and the briquettes density was 0.99 g/cm 3 . The thermal properties and physicochemical characteristics of the banana leaves briquettes demonstrate its potential for use as biomass fuel. 1. Introduction The banana production occurs in many countries, and Brazil is the third largest producer and the world's largest consumer. It is estimated that the acreage in the country reaches about 491,000 acres (IBGE, 2012). The banana cultivation generates a significant amount of waste. The most significant residues are leaves, stalks and pseudostem because they are generated in greater amounts and occupy large volumes. In the city of Joinville (southern Brazil), where banana production is 19,800 tons per year (IBGE, 2012), the amount of waste leaves represent 29,700 tons of waste that is not recovered. The use of agricultural and agro-industrial wastes as biomass is being increasingly studied and could be an alternative solution to the problems related to them (Fernandes et al., 2013). However, is very difficult to handle, transport, store, and utilize biomass in its original form due some factors including high moisture content, irregular shape and sizes, and low bulk density (Karunanithy et al., 2012). Densification process can produce briquettes with uniform shape and sizes that can be more easily handled using existing handling and storage equipment and thereby reduce cost associated with transportation, handling, and storage (Karunanithy et al., 2012). For successful densification is required that the waste presents moisture content between 5 and 10% and particle size can be varied from 1 to 10 mm (Wilaipon, 2009). DOI: 10.3303/CET1437074 Please cite this article as: Maia B.G.D.O., Souza O., Marangoni C., Hotza D., Oliveira A.P.N.D., Sellin N., 2014, Production and characterization of fuel briquettes from banana leaves waste, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 37, 439-444 DOI: 10.3303/CET1437074 439