Characterization of pressmud: A sugar industry waste

The increasing demand of energy has been a prime source of motivation for the development of alternate fuels. The concept of biological degradation of organic wastes by anaerobic digestion for the generation of methane has been used by waste management industries for many years. Pressmud is an industrial waste available from the sugar mills. For every 100 tonnes of sugarcane crushed about 3 tones of pressmud cake is left behind as by-product. The objective of this work was to study the characterization of pressmud and its uses and importance. This paper reports its proximate analysis, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM) analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis etc. The thermo gravimetric (TG), derivative thermo gravimetric (DTG) and differential thermal analyses (DTA) were also carried out. The overall objective of these analyses is to find out the suitability of pressmud for energy generation and the distinct behavior of pressmud indicates that this sugar industry waste is highly suitable for energy production. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.