Evaluation of biomass briquettes from agricultural waste on industrial application of flue-curing of tobacco

Abstract

A large amount of waste biomass is produced during agricultural processes, which is a promising renewable energy source, but, to date, there are no effective ways of realizing industrial application of such waste biomass. In the present study, the biomass briquettes produced by waste biomass, which were used as fuel in the curing of flue-cured tobacco, were analyzed. Compared with coal, the average fuel consumption and labor cost of biomass briquettes were down 3.53 and 39.50%, respectively. As for the quality of flue-cured tobacco processed using biomass briquettes, the proportion of superior tobacco leaves increased by 1.23% and the proportion of inferior tobacco leaves decreased by 1.21% compared with those processed using coal. By monitoring the exhaust gases, the emissions of CO2, CO, and SO2 from biomass briquettes were decreased by 57.28, 95.45, and 98.06%, respectively, compared with coal. The results indicated that the biomass briquette is an excellent renewable industrially useful fuel with potential for future application and is an environmentally-friendly fuel, which can be widely used in the drying of agricultural products.