Production of Electricity and Charcoal from Banana Trunk Waste

Banana trees only bear fruit once. After this fruit, the banana tree dies and the trunk becomes waste. Meanwhile, banana production from the plantation is continued by its seedlings. To maintain the quality of banana production, controlling the number of banana saplings is important, especially in plantations that are professionally managed. The more banana trees, especially if the number is not controlled, the quality and quantity of bananas produced will decrease.

After the bananas are harvested, the trunks are just left in the banana plantation. Even though banana trunks can be used for electricity and charcoal production, namely by continuous pyrolysis technology. The electricity produced can be used for banana packaging production operations which are usually export-oriented and charcoal can be used to maintain the fertility of the banana plantation land itself or for fuel, for example by making briquettes. The process of removing banana trunks from the plantation should also be easy because you can take advantage of the means used to transport bananas from the plantation, of course, with a few modifications. After the banana trunks are collected in a place, then the size is reduced (downsizing) and the moisture content is reduced so that can continue processed with the pyrolysis unit.

Large banana plantations generally manage plantation covering thousands or tens of thousands hectares. With these conditions, the resulting banana trunk waste is also very large, or comparable to the banana harvest. Costa Rica is a country that is well-known as a banana producing country. In a number of countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, there are also a number of large banana plantations. By utilizing banana stem waste or adding waste from the plantation, besides overcoming environmental problems and preventing banana tree disease so that the productivity of the banana plantation is maintained, it also provides other benefits. The use of charcoal (biochar) for the banana plantation. Besides being able to save on the use of fertilizers, it will also increase the productivity of the banana fruit itself, as can also be done in oil palm plantations, for more details can be read here. A number of practices using charcoal for agriculture (biochar) can increase crop productivity by up to 40%.