COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COAL BRIQUETTE BLENDS WITH GROUNDNUT SHELL AND MAIZE COB

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COAL BRIQUETTE BLENDS WITH GROUNDNUT SHELL AND MAIZE COB.

ABSTRACT

This work studied the effect of groundnut shell and maize cob on coal briquette. The ratio of coal: biomass prepared were 90:10, 85:15, 80:20, 75:25, 70:30, 100:0. The mixture was treated with Ca(OH) which serves as a desulphurizing agent, before briquetting. The chemical analysis carried out on the raw materials (i.e. groundnut shell, maize cob and coal) indicated the presence of Ca, Mg, Al, Na, Fe, Cu, K, Zn, Mn, Pb, Ni, Cr, As, S. The proximate analysis of the raw materials was also carried out. Burning and viability tests carried out revealed that maize cob-coal briquettes ignite and burn faster, smoke less, produce flame and small quantity of ash after burning, than the other briquettes. Hardness compressive strength and density test of the briquettes produced showed that coal briquette has better hardness, compressive strength, and density results than the other briquettes. Also, the bio-coal briquette with the highest percentage of biomass (i.e. 30%) gave the best viability, burning, porosity, porosity index, ash content, calorific value results than the other briquettes. However, maize cob-coal briquettes gave the best results compared to the groundnut shell-coal briquettes and the coal briquette which was used as the standard.