Effect of Particle Size Variation on Coconut Pulp Briquettes Quality

Abstract

Coconut is one of the largest agricultural commodities in Indonesia. Various traditional Indonesian dishes use coconut milk as a key ingredient. In recent years, coconut oil has also been produced at a large scale by the community. The process of making coconut milk begins with grating the coconut meat, followed by extraction. Grating methods include traditional hand graters, mechanical graters, and blenders, every methode is resulting in different particle sizes of coconut pulp. Coconut pulp can be further utilized as an alternative fuel source in the form of briquettes. This study aims to determine the quality of coconut pulp briquettes based on particle size, using mesh sizes of 20, 40, and 60. The quality tests performed include moisture content (using a moisture analyzer), ash content (using a furnace), mechanical strength (drop test from 180 cm), and calorific value (using a bomb calorimeter). The results show that all coconut pulp briquettes meet the requirements of the SNI 01-6235-2000 standard. Moisture and ash content increased with finer mesh sizes. The highest calorific value was found in the 20-mesh briquettes (5611 cal/g), while the lowest was observed in the 60-mesh briquettes (5325 cal/g), indicating that smaller particle sizes result in lower energy content. For the drop test, the mass loss results for mesh sizes 20, 40, and 60 were 0.148%, 0.092%, and 0.049%, respectively.