Utilization of Peat Swamp Weed as Raw Material for Bio-briquettes

Weeds are abundantly available, which grow on peat swamps, but unfortunately have not yet been widely utilized. Those weeds can be prospectively potential as raw material for bio-briquettes. In relevant, this research aimed to look into the qualities of bio-briquettes manufactured from 10 species of peat swamp weeds. Initially, each weed species was carbonized and then shaped into charcoal powder. The resulting weed-charcoal powder was then mixed with wood sawdust at 1:1 ratio (w/w), and agitated thoroughly to obtain homogenous stuff. Afterwards, the homogenous stuff was added with starch- derived binder (adhesive). Such adhesive was previously prepared by heating 5 g tapioca-starch flour in 75 ml of water. The starch-added stuff was then pressed into bio-briquette, and further put in the oven at 60°C for 24 hours, or just dried under the sunlight heat for 2 days. The parameters as examined on the dried bio-briquette comprised calorific value, moisture content, fixed-carbon content, ash content, and sulfur content. Results revealed that the weeds of purun tikus (Eleocharis orcrostachys Steud.) species was regarded as the best for bio-briqutte manufacture, as it excelled other species in the overall examined parameters, i.e. calorific value (4,647.9 cal/g), fixed carbon (25.63%), moisture content (5.48%), ash content (8.78%) and sulfur (0.55%).