Biomass Pellet Along With Plants Along With Manufacturing

To produce biomass pellets in a highly automated process requires several processes in wood pellet plants. The first procedure is to diminish the raw matter in size. The raw matter may already be sawdust, in this instance the sawdust can go straight on to drying. In cases where the raw material is wood chips or logs, size reduction will have to take place before the wood can be placed in the dryer. In the biomass is already in chipped form it can be metered into a hammer mill, if not chipping will be required. In the hammer mill the hammers spin around 4000 rpm. As the hammer hits the biomass chip it shatters into smaller pieces. A screen by means of holes of a set size then screens the particles, for biomass pellet construction a particle size of 5mm is generally required for quality wood pellets.

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Once the particles of a sufficient size, they are then ready to be dried down to the necessary moisture content. The two main types of dryers used are flash dryers plus rotary drum dryers. To reduce the carbon footprint of the process ideally wood should be used as the heat source for the dryer. Once the particles have been dried a fan is used to remove the particles from the dryer, and then a cyclone separator is used to separate the particles from the air stream. For wood pellet manufacture the pellet plants often have a steam conditioner. High temperature steam is used to condition the sawdust before it enters the pellet mill. The temperature treatment of the sawdust starts the melting process of the unrefined lignin within the wood to bind the sawdust into pellet form. The pre-melting of the lignin before the sawdust enters the pellet mill, aids in pellet quality plus also lowers pellet mill fuel consumption. The two main pellet mill designs are the flat die pellet mill and disc die pellet mill. The flat die design is more common for small scale plants in addition to the ring die design is more often used in large scale plants. The design of the pellet mill may involve either the roller shell rotating or the die rotating in both designs of pellet mill. The basic principle of the pellet mill is the raw matter enters plus is compressed via a series of rollers due to the die. The design of the holes in the die can influence pellet compression along with productivity. The aim is to achieve the balance between producing pellets of a suitable quality, by the highest productivity potential while minimising fuel consumption.

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There are unlike grades of biomass pellets formed in pellet plants. The most common biomass pellet grade formed is premium biomass pellet fuel. This is formed mainly from softwood and hardwood residues from timber production. Premium pellets demand the highest prices yet the timber producers are now aware of the value of their waste, and fee for the sawdust where originally they paid the pellet producers to remove the sawdust. Because of this fact pellet producers are looking for other biomass resources the can use to produce biomass pellet fuel. For case willow grown as small rotation coppice is being developed.

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