Investigating the effect of lignin on the negative effects of the torrefaction process in the production of briquettes from bagasse

The use of various pretreatments, including the torrefaction process, in order to increase the efficiency and optimize the consumption of fuel briquettes, have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Therefore, in this research, torrefaction pretreatment at 180 ºC temperature was used to modify bagasse biomass. In addition, lignin binding agent was used at levels of 2, 5 and 10%. Fuel briquettes weighing 30 grams were prepared using a manual briquetting machine. The physical, resistance and thermal characteristics of the resulting briquettes were investigated. The results showed that torrefaction pre-treatment by increasing the volumetric density of the resulting briquettes and increasing the amount of fixed carbon up to about 50% was able to increase the heating value of the briquettes up to about 10%, on the other hand, this process led to a decrease in the compressive strength of the resulting briquettes, which is used lignin as a binding agent could compensate a significant amount of this resistance drop. The results showed that the number of volatile substances of briquettes was reduced by 9% with torrefaction pre-treatment, which has a significant effect on reducing the pollution of these briquettes. In the study of the effect of lignin, it was also observed that with the increase in the consumption of lignin, the density and calorific value also increased. In general, the results of this research show that the use of lignin binding agent together with torrefaction pre-treatment can make possible the production of high-quality fuel briquettes from bagasse.