Fabrication and characterization of rice husk charcoal bio briquettes

Rice husk is the outermost part of the rice seed which is a hard layer and a waste material from rice milling. Rice husk includes biomass that can be exploited for various requirements such as industrial raw materials as well as energy sources or fuel but only a small group of people use it. This research is conducted utilizing the rice husk as an alternative fuel by making it as a charcoal briquette. To make the treatment easy, firstly the rice husk biomass was converted into charcoal powder by carbonization method using two kinds of furnace which have different heating behavior. The best carbonization results are obtained from the furnace, which has a constant temperature heating behavior. The process of making briquettes is prepared by adding tapioca starch of 6% concentration by weight as charcoal adhesive and then printed with the aid of pressing tools using loads at 1,000 kg/cm2. The resulting briquette has a calorific value about 3.126 cal/g, mass density is 0.86 g/cm3 and compressive strength is about 2.02 kg/cm2, so that the bio-briquette of charcoal produced can be used as alternative energy to replace the fossil fuel for domestic or household purposes.