Investigation of the Potential for Biocoke Production from the Coconut Shell

Abstract

Currently, Thailand is attempting to overcome the energy security issues by initiating a sustainable solution with an alternative energy development plan. One of the potential energy sources for Thai society is the solid biofuels, so-called biocoke. The biocoke can be made from agricultural or municipal wastes. This study is focused on the production of biocoke from coconut shells since Thailand exports the product from coconuts, leaving numerous coconut shells behind. To produce the biocoke, raw coconut shells were ground into a particle size less than 1 mm. The moisture content of coconut shells was varied every 5 wt% from 0 to 15 wt% to investigate the effect of moisture content on properties of biocoke. Then, the raw materials were pressed using the uniaxial pressing method with the pressure of 16 MPa for 15 minutes at the forming temperature of 180 °C. The biocoke properties, which are calorific value, density, and compressive strength, were examined. It is found that the coconut shell biocoke has the highest density of 1.25 g/cm3 under the temperature of 160 °C and 190 °C.