Utilização de secador solar e resíduos de coco verde para produção energética

Abstract

The country's energy matrix has needs, and changes are moving towards sustainability. The Brazilian energy sources are diverse (hydroelectric, biomass, wind), becoming less and less subordinated to deforestation. With regard to the environmental issue, in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere, the reduction in the use of non-renewables, such as fossil sources, must be reassessed. The use of viable emission alternatives of these gases for emission attenuators. The coconut deposit constitutes a large portion of green and urban mass, mainly coastal, is little used. It has great potential for use as fuel and can be used to manufacture briquettes. It is characterized as a biomass of natural and renewable origin, and appears as an alternative for the use of fossils. The following work has as main objective the energetic use of the green coconut husk. It was verified the feasibility of using coconut husk after drying and treatment in briquettes (ecological firewood). To replace drying by means of an oven for the production of briquettes, the drying potential of a solar dryer was built and evaluated. The solar dryer was made with recycled material that would be destined for disposal. Through heat and mass transfer phenomena, the dryer is heated under sunlight, reaching internal temperatures above 70°C, while the external temperature was around 30°C. Because of this, water is eliminated from the dryer, allowing the coconut husks to be used to lose around 80% of their moisture in 20 days. The literature points out that briquettes should be made with a moisture content of 8% to 23%, depending on the biomass. Therefore, the solar dryer built meets this requirement. Analysis of carbon content, moisture content, ash content, volatile content, higher and lower calorific value and elemental composition were performed. The analyzes were carried out in triplicate and, according to the method, those that differentiated one from the other by more than 2% were disregarded from the calculation. The briquettes were produced with a manual press and their dimensions were calculated using a caliper. With data from the literature, a table was created comparing the calorific value of different fuels and their financial value. According to the literal data, it is possible to replace the firewood with coconut husk briquettes. Due to current economic conditions, this substitution becomes attractive mainly for low-income families for cooking food, due to the high prices of cooking gas