Fuels From Oranges Wastes: Recovery of Wastes from Juice Industry for the Production of Biopellets

ABSTRACT: The reuse of agricultural waste mainly interests the regions of Southern Italy; in particular, Sicily produces 70% of national citrus (annually about 700,000 tonnes of citrus fruits), consequently many waste are generated from production and use of citrus fruits. More than 300,000 tonnes of waste derived from industrial use of citrus fruits end up in landfill sites with considerable problems of disposal, rising chain costs and leading to lower profit margins for the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. The idea exposed in this paper is to use a low cost technology to recovery the waste as raw material for the production of "Biopellets", i.e. home heating products, healthier than wood pellets, with a higher calorific value. The technology utilized, in order to produce the Biopellets, is based on the use of a mechanochemical refining system named "Refolo". The system, consisting in a micronizer mill for ligno-cellulosic and polymeric materials, is composed of an innovative device able to obtain a dry powder from any organic and polymeric waste. This technology has passed laboratory tests and was realized a little demonstrator, that gave considerable results in terms of calorific quality and sterility of the final product. The work focuses on this technology and discusses the possibilities of use.