Prospect of Jatropha Curcas as Energy Plant (3)

Solid fuel from physic nut waste

Physic nut seed contains the oil around of 25-35% of the total unit weight. This form of waste has a crude oil content of 75-65%. Waste can be processed into solid fuel through a process of densification. The process of carbonization or non-carbonization can also be applied to improve the quality of these solid fuels.

In the carbonization process, waste is inserted into the reactor in order to remove moisture, volatile matter and tar. After this process, they are sent to the densification process. This process forms the material into briquettes using a press machine.

There are two types of press machine used, is hydraulic and screw machine. Densification product is densified material called briquettes. This fuel can be used as solid fuel. Briquettes can be easily burned into the furnace or conventional stove. In commercial production, briquettes used to burn water in the boiler. Steam generated, is sent to a steam turbine. This steam spins the generator wheel to produce electricity.

Gas fuel from physic nut waste

The gas fuels can be produced through an anaerobic digestion process. This process is a chemical process involving microorganisms without the presence of oxygen in a digester. This process produces the methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and a small amount of gas. Methane is the largest composition compared with other gas products. This process can be classified into two types: dry and wet anaerobic digestion. The Differences between these anaerobic processes are the ratio of biomass and water used in the digester.