Community-Based Energy Production from Post-Flood Waste for Sustainable Recovery in Aceh

Abstract

Post-disaster biomass waste presents both environmental challenges and opportunities for renewable energy production. In flood-prone regions such as Aceh, large volumes of organic waste can be valorised into solid biofuels to support sustainable recovery. This study aims to develop and evaluate a renewable bio-coke production system based on an integrated biomass drying, carbonization, gas recycling, and densification approach. The methodology involved controlled biomass drying, carbonization at temperatures between 200 and 900 °C, gas recirculation, waste heat recovery, and bio-coke densification. The results show that biomass moisture content was reduced from approximately 45% to below 10% within 25–40 min, enabling stable carbonization. Carbonization temperatures of 400–600 °C achieved a balanced biochar yield of 22–27%, while higher temperatures significantly reduced yield to about 9–10% at 900 °C. Increasing the gas recycling ratio from 10% to nearly 90% reduced external fuel consumption from about 59% to 32%. Waste heat recovery efficiency improved from approximately 62% at low operational levels to nearly 78% at the highest level. The overall energy balance demonstrated that total useful energy output exceeded external input energy by more than 70%. These findings confirm that the proposed system is energy-efficient, technically feasible, and suitable for decentralized renewable bio-coke production, contributing to sustainable post-disaster energy recovery.