Jurnal Ilmu Lingkungan
Vol 22, No 2 (2024): March 2024

Valorisation of Rice Husk and Bubble Wrap Plastic Waste through Co-Torrefaction to Optimise Biochar Production

Aloysius Gonzaga Holy Prajitna (Department of Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesa No. 10, Lebak Siliwangi, Coblong, Bandung 40132, Indonesia)
Mochammad Chaerul (Department of Environmental Engineering, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesa No. 10, Lebak Siliwangi, Coblong, Bandung 40132, Indonesia)



Article Info

Publish Date
15 Feb 2024

Abstract

Rice husk is one of the highest generated agricultural waste estimated to be 11.1-13.8 million tons in Indonesia in 2021. This quantity makes rice husk a potential biomass for conversion into energy to minimize the negative impacts of current processing methods, such as open-burning and mulching. Torrefaction was conducted at 300°C for 30 minutes in this study to enhance the characteristics of biomass fuel by producing biochar with improved combustion properties. The biochar produced from torrefaction of rice husk has a calorific value of 15.04 MJ/kg with a volatile matter content of 42.94% and fixed carbon content of 17.94%. Despite this improvement compared to raw rice husk, this biochar tends to have a relatively high mass loss, with a mass yield of only 54%. Therefore, the addition of LDPE plastic feedstock in the form of bubble wrap was carried out up to 50% of the feedstock mass, resulting in further optimization at the RH50 variation, which increased the calorific value to 19.98 MJ/kg and mass yield to 72%. These changes were statistically tested and found to be significant, indicating that torrefaction is a promising technology for rice husk processing, and bubble wrap in this study can significantly contribute to enhancing the characteristics of rice husk as a renewable fuel source.

Copyrights © 2024