TY - JFULL AU - S. J. Mitchual and K. Frimpong-Mensah and N. A. Darkwa PY - 2014/8/ TI - Evaluation of Fuel Properties of Six Tropical Hardwood Timber Species for Briquettes T2 - International Journal of Environmental and Ecological Engineering SP - 530 EP - 537 VL - 8 SN - 1307-6892 UR - https://publications.waset.org/pdf/10002350 PU - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology NX - Open Science Index 91, 2014 N2 - The fuel potential of six tropical hardwood species namely: Triplochiton scleroxylon, Ceiba pentandra, Aningeria robusta, Terminalia superba, Celtis mildbreadii and Piptadenia africana were studied. Properties studied included species density, gross calorific value, volatile matter, ash content, organic carbon and elemental composition. Fuel properties were determined using standard laboratory methods. The result indicates that the gross calorific value (GCV) of the species ranged from 20.16 to 22.22 MJ/kg and they slightly varied from each other. Additionally, the GCV of the biomass materials were higher than that of other biomass materials like; wheat straw, rice straw, maize straw and sugar cane. The ash and volatile matter content varied from 0.6075 to 5.0407%, and 75.23% to 83.70% respectively. The overall rating of the properties of the six biomass materials suggested that Piptadenia africana has the best fuel property to be used as briquettes and Aningeria robusta the worse. This study therefore suggests that a holistic assessment of a biomass material needs to be done before selecting it for fuel purpose. ER -