Sugar cane residue (Bagasse)

Bagasse is a by product of the sugar cane industry. A lot of bagasse is produced in South America. It is widely used as a biofuel inside the producing countries: Brazil, Cuba. In Cuba  bagasse is regarded to be an important energy source for the country. There have been a lot of discussions about the use of bagasse pellets in Europe, but, unfortunately, a big problem of bagasse is its  high  moisture  content (about 50%), which makes pellet production from bagasse an expensive procedure. Olive cake is produced from pommace, which also has a moisture content about 60%, but due to the second oil extraction process with hexane, olive cake is dried to moisture 13-15% during the oil extraction. Hence, there is no need to use extra energy for the drying of this product. Bagasse on the contrary does not need to be dried and pellets have to be made by using dryers.

Experimental bagasse pellets that were available to us, had a Moisture content of about 8%, Ash content of about 6-6,5 %, Suphur content - 0,13% and NCV - about 16,3-16,5 GJ per mt.