The Effect of Tapioca Flour Adhesives to the Biopellet Characteristics of Rice Husk Waste as Renewable Energy

Abstract

Abstract The abundance of rice husk waste in Indonesia and more than 50% of its cellulose content have the potential to become environmentally friendly and renewable energy, including biopellet. The purpose of this research aims to evaluate the addition of adhesives to the biopellet production. Tapioca flour used as adhesives which a concentration were 10%, 15%, and 20% (w/w) of rice husk waste. Densification process of biopellet production was used by pellet mill machine with a capacity of 120 kg/h. The quality of biopellet product can fulfill the Indonesian biopellet national standard namely SNI 8021:2014. The characterization of biopellet product was to determined the quality of the fuel, which including test of density, water content, fixed carbon content, volatile matter content, and caloric value. The results shows that the characteristics of biopellet of rice husk waste contained tapioca flour concentration (% w/w) 10, 15, and 20 were 8.18, 8.88, 9.18% for water content; 0.81, 0.9, 0.9 g/cm3 of density; 12, 11.17, 11.95% of fly ash content; and 4068, 4013, 4004 cal/g of caloric value. Rice husk waste has the potential as a biopellet solid fuel.