Commercial Grade Charcoal Briquette Production from Forestry Biomass Waste"

Malaysia has abundance of biomass resources, which obtained from various economic activities such as forestry and agricultural activities. Forestry industry contributes significantly to generation of woody biomass wastes through logging activities for timber and wood processing. Charcoal production industry in Sarawak primarily utilizes mangrove wood logs as raw material. During the charcoal production processes, tree barks are removed from the process in which classified as wastes. Thus, the main aim of this study is identify the suitable forestry biomass wastes for charcoal production in Sarawak. In this study, survey is conducted on the current charcoal production processes and properties of charcoal produced from mangrove tree bark are determined. The properties of mangrove tree bark charcoal briquette are then compared to commercially available charcoals. In this study, the properties of charcoal briquettes such as calorific value, ash content, moisture content, density and amount of fines determined. Results from experimental testing show that charcoal produced from mangrove tree bark have high moisture and ash content. However, the calorific value of mangrove tree bark charcoal briquette is considerably high, which ranges from 19.2481 kJ/kg to 20.3545 kJ/kg. As such, it is concluded that briquetting of mangrove tree bark charcoal significantly improved mangrove tree bark charcoal that is suitable to be commercialized