Contribution to the Energy Situation in Tajikistan by Using Residual Apricot Branches after Pruning as an Alternative Fuel

Sayfullo Akhmedov, Tatiana Ivanova, Surayyo Abdulloeva, Alexandru Muntean and Vladimír Krepl
Additional contact information
Sayfullo Akhmedov: Department of Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic
Tatiana Ivanova: Department of Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic
Surayyo Abdulloeva: Department of Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic
Alexandru Muntean: Department of Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic
Vladimír Krepl: Department of Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 165 21 Prague, Czech Republic

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 16, 1-11

Abstract: A lack of access to energy in the rural areas of Tajikistan is one of the current problems of the country. Tajikistan’s goal is to reach energy independency, and the main prospects for the country’s energy sector, which relies on energy imports during the long heating periods, are: higher exploitations of hydropower and development of other renewables, mainly biofuels. Tajikistan is a highly agrarian country, where agriculture is the dominant source of income for the majority of the population. Apricot belongs to the primary agricultural commodities; however, the cultivation and management of apricot orchards is associated with the annual accumulation of significant amounts of wood waste (residual branches after pruning), which represent a source of easily available biomass. Thus, the main focus of the present research was to investigate the properties (physical, chemical and mechanical) of densified briquettes and pellets from the residual apricot tree branches through the laboratory measurements by the standard methodologies and to calculate the energy yield and potential of this material for Tajikistan as a similar study has not been conducted yet. The results showed a good quality of apricot-based biofuels characterised by the high calorific value ( NCV dry basis of 19.3 MJ kg −1 ), relatively low ash content (1.7%) and suitable values of the main chemical elements that fulfil the standard requirement on graded wooden biofuels. The total yearly energy yield of residual apricot branches was calculated to be 3245 TJ.

Keywords: briquettes; energy yield; pellets; properties; waste biomass (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/16/3169/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/16/3169/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:16:p:3169-:d:258652

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().