International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03497-7

ORIGINAL PAPER

Production and characterization of environmentally friendly charcoal

briquettes obtained from agriculture waste: case of Cameroon
P. Tiam Kapen1,2,3 · M. Nandou Tenkeu4 · E. Yadjie1,2 · G. Tchuen1,2

Received: 28 September 2020 / Revised: 9 March 2021 / Accepted: 20 June 2021

© Islamic Azad University (IAU) 2021

Abstract
In this paper, three types of charcoal briquettes, respectively, from banana peel, corn husk and their mixture for cooking
applications in Cameroonian’s households were produced, characterized and compared to firewood charcoal. Cassava starch
was used as binder. The determination of fixed carbon, volatile matter and ash contents was performed according to the
D1762-84 standard procedure. A Thermo Scientific FLASH 2000 Organic Elemental Analyzer was used to find the composi-
tion of organic elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and sulfur) of the charcoal briquettes samples. Based on the elemental
composition analysis results, the higher heating value (HHV) was computed. The results showed that the average HHV of
briquettes ranged between 16.42 and 16.64 MJ/kg for banana peel, from 16.80 to 16.92 MJ/kg for corn husks and from 16.87
to 17.24 MJ/kg for their mixture. The elemental ratios for H/C and O/C were evaluated as well. The Van Krevelen diagram
showed that the values were below 0.7 and 0.4, respectively, for all the briquettes, considered good in terms of stability. The
kilogram of the proposed charcoal obtained from agriculture waste costs around 0.42 Dollar while that of firewood charcoal
is sold at around 0.68 Dollar in Cameroon markets.

Keywords Affordable charcoal briquettes · Banana peel · Corn husks · Proximate analysis · Elemental analysis · Higher
heating value

Introduction ntry%​20Rep​ort.​pdf). This biomass partially obtained from

agriculture which generates large amounts of waste is used
Cameroon is a territory of Central Africa, located between as an energy source principally by Cameroonians in rural
Nigeria in the northwest, Chad in the north, the Central Afri- zones. Among the most consumed products of this agri-
can Republic in the east, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in cultural activity are banana with an annual production of
the south and the Republic of Congo in the southeast. It two million and corn of one million tons (http://​assig​ana-​
has third largest biomass potential in sub-Saharan Africa, 2018.​over-​blog.​com/​2015/​08/l-​etat-​de-​notre-​agric​ulture-​
estimated at about 25 million hectares of forest (http://w ​ ww.​ au-​camer​oun.​html). They generate residues such as leaves,
laurea.​fi/​en/​conne​ct/​resul​ts/​Docum​ents/​Camer​oon%​20Cou​ stalks, peel and husk whose disposal remains a problem.
Indeed, the method generally used to eliminate these wastes
could be the combustion in the open air, which certainly
Editorial responsibility: Samareh Mirkia.
contributes to climate change. A method of recovering this
* P. Tiam Kapen waste is the production of renewable energy (Sellin et al.
fpascalin20022003@yahoo.fr 2016). It is in this vein that several works have emerged
in the literature for the valorization of agricultural wastes
1
URISIE, University Institute of Technology Fotso Victor, in general. In recent studies, banana culture wastes (pseu-
University of Dschang, P.O Box 134, Bandjoun, Cameroon
dostem for instance) were transformed for the production
2
UR2MSP, Department of Physics, University of Dschang, of briquettes (Sellin et al. 2013). The authors evaluated the
P.O Box 67, Dschang, Cameroon
thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis of these
3
BEEMo. Lab., Higher Institute of Science and Technology, wastes in order to produce briquettes. They also concluded
Université Des Montagnes, P.O Box 208, Bangangte,
Cameroon that the briquettes had good mechanical characteristics.
4 The evaluation of briquettes obtained from banana leaves
Kemit Ecology, Mairie douala 2e, Cameroon

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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

was also performed (de Oliveira Maia et al. 2014), and it types of vegetable market waste used in their study ranged
was observed a similarity in terms of physical, thermal and between 10.26 and 13.70 MJ/kg. Kongprasert et al. manu-
chemical characteristics with other biomass usually used factured charcoal briquettes from the agricultural wastes and
for energy production. Some authors investigated the pro- investigated the properties of these briquettes (Kongprasert
duction briquettes from banana crop and/or rice waste (de et al. 2009). They used Madan wood and coconut shell as
Oliveira Maia et al. 2017; Mopoung and Udeye 2017). The raw materials. The authors revealed that charcoal briquettes
briquettes were constructed by applying a compaction pres- made from Madan wood had the highest calorific value of
sure of 18 MPa using a hydraulic briquetting press without 6622 cal/g. To our knowledge, no work concerning the val-
adding a binder. They authors determined the characteris- orization of agriculture waste for the production of charcoal
tics of various types of wastes through thermal, proximate briquettes was conducted in Cameroon. Given the diver-
and elemental chemical analyses, HHV, energy and bulk sity and the amount of wastes produced from agriculture
densities. Recently, rice and coffee husk were used for the in Cameroon, there is an urgent need for developing more
production and characterization of briquettes for cooking approaches for energy production. Therefore, the objective
use (Lubwama and Yiga 2018). Other researches were also of this paper is to develop, characterize and compare three
investigated in the literature for briquettes production. The types of briquettes obtained, respectively, from banana peel,
effects of water content, compaction pressure, feed parti- corn husk and their mixture for cooking use in Cameroo-
cle size, compaction retention time and the use of starch as nian households. The preliminary characteristics of these
a binder were studied (Bazargan et al. 2014). Other works briquettes were compared to that of firewood charcoal. The
based on the mechanical or thermogravimetric properties of rest of the paper is organized as: Sect. 2 presents the materi-
briquettes obtained from agriculture waste were also devel- als and methods. In Sect. 3, results and discussions together
oped. Indeed, Chou et al. investigated the production and with initial social impact are given. Section 4 concludes and
characterization of the solid fuel briquette, which was made gives some perspectives.
from rice straw and rice bran. They provided some charac-
teristics for the briquettes produced. These characteristics
included the compressive strength and the heating value at Materials and methods
room temperature (Chou et al. 2009). Biobriquettes were
produced from brown seaweeds (Phaeophyta) collected from Wastes samples preparation
the Bosphorus in Haykiri-Acma et al. (2013). The authors
showed that the biobriquettes had satisfactory characteris- Corn husk (with 20% of moisture content) and banana peel
tics in terms of compressive strength regardless of the type (with 70% of moisture content) samples were collected from
of binder. Two types of biofuel pellets were prepared from local markets and households of the city of Douala, Cam-
raw biomass and the corresponding hydrochar in Liu et al. eroon. These samples are presented in Fig. 1a, b. Then, corn
(2014). The authors demonstrated the elevated heating val- husk wastes were dried at 60 °C during 8 h in a locally made
ues and mechanical strength in comparison with those raw oven (see Fig. 1d), while banana peel wastes were dried at
biomass pellets. Lubwama and Yiga developed ground- the same temperature during 24 h. Figure 1c shows the dried
nut shells and bagasse briquettes from agricultural wastes wastes samples.
Lubwama and Yiga (2017). Thermo-physical properties of
the briquettes were determined using thermogravimetric Pyrolyzer
analysis. A Bomb calorimeter was used to determine the
higher heating values of the briquettes. In addition, thermal A metal drum of 200 L surmounted by a chimney (100 cm of
characteristics were determined by observing the flame tem- length and 10 cm of diameter) was used for pyrolysis of corn
perature during combustion. The mechanical integrity of the husk and banana peel. Ten holes (2 cm of diameter each)
briquettes was determined using the drop test method. It was placed at the bottom of the drum allowed the propagation of
shown that the higher heating values for groundnut shell and air. The chimney was placed at the top of the pyrolyzer pro-
bagasse briquettes developed using low pressure techniques vided an outlet for smoke (Fig. 2a). Then, the wastes were
were between 21 and 23 MJ/kg for both cassava and wheat carbonized at 300 °C. In order to measure the temperature
starch binders. Srivastava et al. transformed vegetable mar- inside the pyrolyzer, a Pt100 thermocouple was used. The
ket waste into an energy-briquette (Srivastava et al. 2014). carbonized wastes are presented in Fig. 2b, c. Cassava starch
They concluded that the calorific value of four different was used as a binder and added to the carbonized wastes.

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International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Fig. 1  Corn husk with 20% of

moisture content (a), banana
peel with 70% of moisture
content (b), dried corn husk
with 3% of moisture content (c)
and dried banana peel with 5%
of moisture content (d)

Fig. 2  The 200-L pyrolyzer

(a), carbonized corn husk (b),
carbonized banana peel (c) and
charcoal briquettes with 2% of
moisture content (d)

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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

The mass ratio of carbonized waste to starch was 85:15. Dur- sample, subtracted by its ash content and volatile matter con-
ing pyrolysis process, the small holes at the bottom of the tent (as determined by the aforementioned proximate analy-
pyrolyzer were open until the fire is self-sustaining, at which sis) corresponds to the stable carbon fraction of that sample
point they were closed to restrict the levels of oxygen inside and hence, this fraction is termed ‘fix carbon or fixed-C
so as to create environment favorable for the pyrolysis. A fraction’. In this study, the volatile matter content, the ash
mass of 10 kgs of each type of feedstock was carbonized in content and the fixed carbon content were expressed on dry
the pyrolyzer. basis. Their percentage reads:
Mash
Charcoal briquettes production %Mash = 100 ⋅ (1)
Mdry
The production of charcoal briquettes for each type of waste
was performed by means of a hydraulic briquetting press. Mvm
The compaction pressure used to produce briquettes was %Mvm = 100 ⋅
Mdry (2)
5.7 MPa. The machine was capable of producing 30 bri-
quettes per minute. The resulting briquettes were cubic and
Mdry − Mvm − Mash
uniformly compacted with 2 cm of length (Fig. 2d). The %Mfc = 100 ⋅ (3)
moisture content of charcoal briquettes produced was 2%. Mdry
They were then dried in the sun (at an ambient temperature
of 30 °C) for 3 days in the city of Douala, Cameroon. where %Mash , %Mvm and %Mfc are the contents of ash, vola-
tile matter and fixed carbon, respectively. Mvm is the weight
Charcoal briquettes characterization of the volatile matter in the sample (kg), Mdry is the oven dry
weight of the sample (kg) and Mash is the weight of the ash
Proximate analysis residue of the sample (kg).

By using the D1762-84 (ASTM 2007) standard procedure, Elemental analysis

fixed carbon, volatile matter and ash contents were deter-
mined. Indeed, after heating charcoal wastes samples of The organic elemental compositions (carbon, hydrogen, nitro-
approximately 1 g, the sample weight differences before and gen and sulfur by mass) of the charcoal wastes samples were
after heating were determined. For volatile matter content determined using a Thermo Scientific FLASH 2000 Organic
determination ( Mvm ), samples were heated to 950 °C dur- Elemental Analyzer. Samples were (re)dried by vacuum
ing 11 min (covered crucible) and for ash content ( Mash ) desiccation for 12 h prior to analysis, and the compositions
to 750 °C for a minimum of 2 h (uncovered crucible) and were determined from ca. 2 mg subsamples (Mettler Toledo
weight differences were recorded. The weight of the original XP6 balance). 2,5-Bis(5-tert-butyl-benzoxazol-2-yl)thio-
phene (BBOT) was used as a standard reference material,
Table 1  Proximate analysis results and measurements were taken to the requirements of ASTM
Sample Volatile matter Ash (%) Fixed carbon (%) D 5373–02. Oxygen content was determined by difference:
(%)
%O = 100 − %C − %H − %N − %S − %Mash (4)
T1 20.85 11.33 67.80
T2 20.91 11.28 67.80
All elemental compositions are expressed in mass frac-
T3 20.81 11.60 67.58
tion, on dry basis.
B1 23.60 30.09 46.30
B2 24.70 29.74 45.55
Heating value
B3 24.36 30.16 45.46
M1 23.61 29.68 46.70
The HHV is computed based on the elemental composition
M2 23.75 29.35 46.89
analysis results, using the following formula:
M3 23.76 29.22 47.01 HHV[kJ∕kg] = 349.1 ⋅ %C + 1178.3 ⋅ %H + 100.5 ⋅ %S
M1 + B1 18.63 36.89 44.46
− 103.4 ⋅ %O − 15.1 ⋅ %N − 21.1 ⋅ %Mash
M2 + B2 18.56 35.76 45.67
(5)

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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

HHV (MJ/kg)

25.50
25.94
25.73
16.64
16.42
16.59
16.85
16.80
16.92
17.24
16.87
%O/%C

0.17
0.16
0.17
0.31
0.32
0.31
0.31
0.31
0.31
0.19
0.22
Fig. 3  Van Krevelen diagram

Results and discussion

Proximate analysis results

%H/%C

0.46
0.46
0.46
0.58
0.55
0.57
0.61
0.59
0.61
0.58
0.54

The firewood charcoal was chosen as the reference charcoal

for comparison purposes. The different charcoal samples
were coded as follows:
T1: First sample of firewood charcoal;
T2: Second sample of firewood charcoal;
T3: Third sample of firewood charcoal;
16.18
15.12
15.50
19.36
19.95
19.50
19.43
19.61
19.68
12.05
13.60
%O

B1: First sample of charcoal from banana peel;

B2: Second sample of charcoal from banana peel;
B3: Third sample of charcoal from banana peel;
M1: First sample of charcoal from corn husk;
M2: Second sample of charcoal from corn husk;
%S

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

M3: Third sample of charcoal from corn husk;

M1 + B1: First sample of charcoal obtained from mixture
of carbonized corn husk and carbonized banana peel (50%
for each sample of the mixture);
0.31
0.47
0.27
0.72
0.75
0.53
0.80
0.84
0.81
1.23
1.13
%N

M2 + B2: Second sample of charcoal obtained from mix-

ture of carbonized corn husk and carbonized banana peel
(50% for each sample of the mixture).
Table 1 lists the proximate analysis results. Fixed carbon,
volatile matter, ash contents were expressed on dry basis.
2.68
2.68
2.68
2.28
2.19
2.24
2.42
2.34
2.44
2.28
2.13
%H
Table 2  Elemental analysis results and HHV

Elemental analysis results and higher heating

values

Table 2 lists the elemental analysis results, together with the

69.49
70.45
69.95
47.55
47.37
47.57
47.67
47.85
47.85
47.55
47.37

HHV. All values were expressed on dry basis.

%C

The elemental ratios for H/C and O/C have been also
expressed on a Van Krevelen diagram. Figure 3 presents
the diagram.
M1 + B1
M2 + B2
Sample

M1
M2
M3
B1
B2
B3
T1
T2
T3

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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Discussion

The proximate analysis results summarized in Table 1 show

that the charcoal briquettes presented an average volatile matter
content of 24.22% for banana peel, 23.71% for corn husk and
Total price in USD

18.60% for their mixture. It can be noticed that the volatile mat-
ter contents for banana peel and corn husk were greater than that
of charcoal firewood (20.86%) which remained almost constant.
115.75

In addition, the volatile content for the mixture was relatively

9.516

90.73
180

24

low compared to the others. These values simply indicated that

the energy released during the combustion of charcoal briquettes
from banana peel and corn husk is greater than that of charcoal
firewood. All the samples presented high fixed carbon contents.
It can be also observed from Table 1, the considerable
presence of ash (mineral content) in some of the samples
(about 1/3 of the dry charcoal weight).
1.20 USD per liter
1.20 USD per liter
Unit price in USD

0.116 USD per kg

The average higher heating values of charcoal bri-

0.18 USD per kg

quettes from banana peel, corn husk and their mixture were
16.55 MJ/Kg, 16.86 MJ/Kg and 17.055 MJ/Kg, respec-
tively. These values were relatively low compared to that
45.37

of charcoal firewood (25.72 MJ/Kg). This can be explained

by their high values of ash content. It is important to men-
tion that these results are in good agreement with the values
obtained in (de Oliveira et al. 2017; Haykiri-Acma et al.
2013; Kongprasert et al. 2009; Liu et al. 2014; Lubwama
Quantity

1000 kg

and Yiga 2017).

7.93 L
20 L

Table 2 presents the elemental analysis results for all the

02
–

samples. Here, the elemental ratio’s for H/C and O/C were
below 0.7 and 0.4, respectively, which are considered to
be good in terms of stability. This is reinforced by the Van
Krevelen diagram shown in Fig. 3.
Fuel consumed by vehicles in charge of transport from markets to the industry

Initial social impact investigation

The present work is a direct contribution to the fight against

Table 3  Method for calculating the cost for the proposed charcoal

expensive living in Cameroon where the average monthly

income is 59.39 Dollar. Indeed, the kilogram of firewood
charcoal is sold at around 0.68 Dollar while the proposed
charcoal obtained from agriculture waste costs around 0.42
Dollar. The detailed method for calculating the cost for the
Transportation the waste collected from markets

proposed charcoal is presented in Table 3. In addition, it is

well known that waste thrown into the environment pro-
duce methane, which pollutes the ozone layer 22 times more
Fuel consumed for sample preparation

than ­CO2. Thus, through this process of producing green

charcoal, we contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions. An investigation on the usage of the proposed
Employee payment
Activity

Profit

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International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

Table 4  Summary of the investigation thermal behavior through thermogravimetric and differen-
Region West Littoral tial thermal analysis, mechanical behavior, bulk and energy
densities. More investigation on the usage of the proposed
Number of households satisfied with the 11 37 charcoal would be also interesting.
use and the cost of firewood charcoal
Number of households satisfied with 47 92 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Ir. Fred-
the use and the cost of the proposed erik Ronsse from the department of biosystems engineering of Univer-
charcoal siteit Gent in Belgium for his contribution in the characterization of
charcoal briquettes.

Declaration

charcoals was carried out within a period of three years in Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
187 households of two regions of Cameroon (West and lit- interest.
toral regions). Table 4 presents the summary of the investi-
gation. It can be easily observed that about 5.9% and 19.79%
of the sample population were satisfied with the use and the References
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 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology

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