Parameters Affecting Biomass Densification Process of The Rice Husk.

• Main Author: Azme, Muhammad Fahmi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 2010
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/10210/2/2010%20-%20Parameters%20Affecting%20Biomass%20Densification%20Process%20of%20the%20Rice%20Husk.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/10210/

Densification of biomass is often necessary to combat the negative storage and handling characteristics of these low bulk density materials. A consistent, high quality densified product is strongly desired, but not always delivered. Within the context of pelleting and briquetting, binding agents are commonly added to comminuted biomass feedstocks to improve the quality of the resulting pellets or briquettes. However in this study, author chooses to make the densification process binderless by only manipulating the parameters during the densification process. The load applied and the particle size of the rice husk is the manipulating variables in this experiment. The rice husk first is being milled by the miller and the distribution of the size ranging up to 500 11m. The rice husk is then being divided into three sizes 100 11m, 355 11m and 500 11m by using the sieving machine. For each sizes, authors set the weight of the sample to be constant which is 0.5 g. Auto pallet machine is used for densification process with the load applied starting from 500 kg to 1000 kg with the intervals of IOOkg. A proper medium is necessary to hold the pallet prior to the hardness test. The pallet had undergone a hot mounting process where a resin is added to the hot mounting machine to provide a medium for pallets. After hot mounting process, the pallets with a resin as a medium are being tested by the Rockwell Hardness Machine. From the value of hardness obtained, as the load/applied pressure increased, the hardness of the rice husk also increased. The fine size of rice husk give better hardness compared to the medium and large one, but the combination of both fine and medium particle size give better hardness among all the stzes.