PROPERTY ANALYSIS OF COCO COIR AND GMELINA SAWDUST BRIQUETTES USING PAPER PULP AS BINDER

Solid waste management presents a major challenge for many barangay in General Santos City, where rapid population growth contributed to environmental degradation and waste disposal challenges. One major problem that the city must cope up is the issue with inaccessibility of affordable cooking fuel. The study aimed to evaluate the fuel properties of biomass briquettes made from coco coir and sawdust using a newspaper as a binder and produce briquettes as alternative fuel. A specified ratio was used in producing briquettes of biomass and binder (70:30). In the study, coco coir (100%), sawdust (100%), and combinations of coco coir and sawdust (50%-50%) constituent briquettes were produced using a manually-operated press type briquettor. Fuel properties evaluated and were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and interpret using Complete-Randomized Design (CRD) at 5% and 1% level of significance. Consequently, Least Significant Difference (LSD) was used to test the mean comparison. The briquettes developed had calorific values between 30.56 and 32.02 MJ/kg. Durability of the briquettes attains 100%. It was then concluded that stable and efficient briquettes could be formed from sawdust particles. Rearmost, good quality and cost-effective briquettes would be produced by blended briquette mixture using an efficient briquetting machine.