Dwi Fajar Sulistyanto 1
ABSTRACT
Indonesia has a range of potential biomass energy resources that comes from waste of forest, agriculture, and forest product industry. Agricultural waste produced from unused waste materials and residue from the processing. Waste decompose process naturally was slow, so that the residue affect environtmental and human health. One of the source of biomass derived from agricultural waste is midrib of snakefruits (Salacca edulis Reinw. cv Pondoh). It is potentially a source of energy in the form of charcoal briquettes and will be able to answer the challenge of energy crisis that occurred today.
The research design used is a Completely Randomized Design with factorial and further test by Honestly Significant Difference Tuckey test at 5% test level. Factors used in this research is the variation of adhesive (4%, 6%, and 8%) and compression pressure (3,000 pounds, 4,000 pounds, and 5,000 pounds).
The result shows that charcoal briquettes from snakefruit midrib has moisture content between 5.96-12.08%; specific gravity 0.55-0.62; gross calorific value 6,066-6,713 cal/g; volatile matter 41.68-50.98%; ash 9.27-12.83%; and fixed carbon 30.23-41.79%. The best combination obtained the amount of adhesive 4% and compression pressure 5,000 pounds (M1P3) with moisture content 5.96%; specific gravity 0.61; gross calorific value 6,713 cal/g; volatile matter 50.98%, ash 12.83%, and fixed carbon 30.23%.
Keywords: waste, snakefruit midrib, charcoal briquettes, amount of adhesive, compression pressure, physical-chemical properties.
