Investigation on biomass briquettes as energy source in relation to their calorific values and measurement of their total carbon and elemental contents for efficient biofuel utilization.

The relationship between the high heating values (H HV’s) and total elemental hydrogen and carbon conte nts of fourteen (14) selected biomass briquettes is studie d. Analyses of the experimental results shows that, the HHV’s of the biomass tested are not linearly related to thei r total hydrogen contents but, directly related to their total Carbon contents. HHV’s calculated from emperical correlati ons using the elemental contents of C, H, N,S and O compared well with that of the American Standard of Testing Materials (ASTM) results and also in good agreement with the widely reported values in the acceptable range of 1 7-21MJ/Kg. The investigation of the effect of parti cle size on the HHV’s indicates that finely ground particles (about 125µm) had low calorific values as the grinding re sulted in a loss of some heat and made the sample vulnerable to air oxidation.