The Potential of Charcoal Gasification as an Eco-Friendly Fuel

Abstract

The use of coal as primary energy in Indonesia will continue to be carried out, although slowly it will experience a significant decline until 2050 by the mandate of the National Energy Policy and the General National Energy Plan; this is more or less due to the potential of national coal reserves of 38.84 Billion Tons. However, planning for green coal or clean coal must be the first step by providing added value for coal through downstream coal gasification methods where the pilot project will be held at PT Bukit Asam as a state-owned enterprise. Coal gasification will produce by-products in the form of char which allegedly still has energy potential. As an effort to recycle when that pilot project is going operation, this char is then used as raw material to make briquettes. In this preliminary research, using coal samples with seam variation from PT Bukit Asam and the gasification process produces some char. After char characterization result by proximate and ultimate analysis, it is found that char experiences an increase in Gross Calorific Value grades from 5,804 cal/gr to 6,183 cal/gr (seam A1), from 5,794 cal/gr to 6,281 cal/gr (seam A2), from 5,837 cal/gr to 6,320 cal/gr (seam B1) and from 5,898 cal/gr to 6,407 cal/gr (seam C) and a significant decrease in sulfur levels from 1.18% to 0.38% (seam A1), from 0,41% to 0.30% (seam A2), from 1.12% to 0.59% (seam B1) and from 1.19% to 0.69% (seam C) and also a significant decrease of inherent moisture from 16.10% to 12% (seam A1), from 15.10% to 11.40% (seam A2), from 17.6% to 10.30% (seam B1) and from 14.8% to 9.9% (seam C). This result makes char potentially a raw material for solid fuels that are environmentally friendly.