Abstract:
Solid waste related challenge and energy problem is common for most of the towns in Ethiopia.
Currently, the unbalanced population growth and energy supply is compelling people to eat food
poorly cooked and travel long distances to collect fuel for cooking. On the other hand, there is a
huge amount of Solid waste generated and dumped everywhere which can be used as input raw
materials for energy production. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess the generation rate
and viability of biochar production from organic municipal solid waste in Fiche town, Ethiopia.
A Crossectional study design was used to collect data from sample respondent. All kebeles found
in Fiche town were purposively selected for this study. Households found in each kebeles
randomly selected for interview using simple random sampling technique. Accordingly, 154
households were selected for interview. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis using
SPSS version 20. The current result showed that, majority of population of Fiche town practices
improper solid waste management due to lack of solid waste disposal site. Waste generation rate
of the study area was determined as 0.58kg per person per day. Out of generated waste, about
66.9% of the municipal solid wastes were biodegradable. In addition, about 47.4%, 52.8%, and
64.5% of biochar was obtained from organic solid waste (chat residues, potato and banana peel)
respectively using slow pyrolysis process at temperature of 300°C to 350°C with heating rate of
5°C /min for 1h to 2h residence time. This implies that, it is possible to generate considerable
amounts of biochar yields in the study area. The proximate analysis revealed that higher
moisture and volatile matter contents of sample organic waste than produced char except for
volatile matter for potato peel. On the other hand, the fixed carbon, calorific value and ash
contents of organic wastes were lower than produced biochar. In addition, the sulfur contents of
both banana and potato peel char were lower than their feedstock while as chat char was
somewhat higher than its feedstock. Generally, the produced char from all input feedstock had
low sulfur contents and high calorific value (0.03%, 0.17%, 15% and 4557.66%, 6344.79%,
4790.27%) banana peel, chat residue and potato peel char respectively. Thus, the biochar
produced from organic solid waste in the study area could be serving as alternative energy while
it reduces Environmental problems. The future study should focus on the method of designating
and developing low cost and portable machine for biochar production from organic solid waste.
