Making briquettes from biomass raw materials is expected to be able to overcome environmental problems and be a solution to fuel scarcity, because the briquette production process is relatively easy and does not require special skills. This study aims to determine the quality of the briquettes produced including water content, ash content, volatile matter, bound carbon content, density, calorific value, and compressive strength test and determine the best comparison results from the manufacture of water hyacinth and candlenut shells mixed briquettes. In this study, comparisons between water hyacinth and candlenut shells were carried out, namely 100:0, 75:25, 25:70, 0:100. Based on the results of the quality test characterization research, the briquette products produced from a mixture of water hyacinth and candlenut shells with parameters of water content, ash content, volatile matter content, calorific value of some briquettes have met SNI 01-6235-2000 and for parameters bound carbon content 14, 54-58.63%, density 0.6612-0.7262 g/cm3, compressive strength 1.43-19.68 kg/cm2. The results of the characterization of the best briquettes from a mixture of water hyacinth and candlenut shells are the ratio of 25:75.
Keywords: briquettes,water hyacinth, candlenut shell