A manually operated hydraulic pelletizer has been used to produce the briquette as shown in Fig. 1.
The die has an internal diameter of 44 mm with a height of 70 mm. The pelletizer can operate in the range of 0–52 MPa.
However, for flexible and safety operation the maximum pressure is limited to 33 MPa.
Each briquette is produced with 30 grams of sawdust or neem powder and five different pressures in pelletizer (7, 13, 20, 26 and 33 MPa).
The thickness of the briquette will vary with the pressure, which affects the performance of the briquette.
In the first set of experiments, strength of the sawdust and neem powder is investigated individually by shatter index,
impact resistance, durability index and water resistance test.