Large numbers of plant are being put up in under-developed and developing countries to meet the need of fossil fuels in areas located far away from mines. Briquettes of 2” to 2.5” diameter are quite useful in low capacity fixed grate firing installation. Currently we are seeing the demand of briquette rise, as more and more coal fired installations are getting retrofitted to use biomass briquettes.

Briquettes have these three essential features about them.
1. High density: bulk density > 750 kg/m3.
2. Low moisture: about 8-10%.
3. Easy to store, transport and handle for firing.

Briquetting is essential for clean combustion through gasifier route. By using briquettes in the gasifiers, most of the pollution standards of developed countries in Europe and USA can be met. Today, there are a few thousand gasifiers working with briquettes fuel in India and abroad.

Limitation with Briquetting industry is the limitation in size of Briquette unit. As production capacity of Briquetting presses are briquette size specific, large capacity Briquetting presses can not be made. Most of the time, the preferred size of briquette is 60-65 mm dia which limits the capacity to maximum 1 MT per Hour.