Energy recovery of waste from amazon region

In the Amazon, the production of wine of acai berry generates a large amount of waste, as only between 5% and 15% of the total fruit is consumed. One of the ways of using this residue is through the production of briquettes or pellets. Thus, the objective of this research was to evaluate the effects of the densification process on the properties of briquettes obtained from acai berry seeds. The biomass was characterized by physico-chemical analysis, subsequently densified and the effects of processing the production of briquettes analyzed through the response surfaces generated from a 2 level and 3 factors full factorial design of experiments. In the acai berry seeds analysis, excellent fuel properties were found, such as a higher heating value of 19.01 MJ.kg-1 and a lower heating value of 15.25 MJ.kg-1, volatile material corresponding to 79.95%, fixed carbon of 18.51% and low ash content of 1.49%. According to the response surfaces, the optimum point was obtained for briquettes produced with 10.5% moisture, temperature of 101°C and maximum particle size of 2.99 mm, obtaining briquettes with mass variation of 0.56%, volumetric expansion of 1.42%, mechanical resistance of 0.083 MPa and energy density of 16321.70 MJ.m-3