How to Make Pellets from Wood Chips?

Biomass energy industry has developed very rapidly in recent years, especially in today the energy crisis is increasingly serious, it is profitable to invest in setting up a biomass pellet plant to turn waste wood or agricultural waste into valuable biomass fuel. (Read more: Wood Pellet Business Plan >>)

Business Guidance on Setting up of Wood Pellet Plant for Wood Chips

As a biomass pellet machine manufacturer with many years of experience, we provide you with the following suggestions to start your wood pellet production business.

• Complete and Target Market Survey

Before buying wood pellet machine, the most important thing is to do a survey of the local market, such as the demand for biomass wood pellets, the market competition, and so on. Since a commercial or industrial biomass wood pellet plant still requires much money for investment, it is indispensible to have a complete market survey and not just an idea. 

• Selection of Raw Materials

After finished the market research on local biomass pellet manufacturing, the next most important thing is the selection of raw materials. You should check which kind of raw material is the most appropriate and cost-effective material for your biomass wood pellet plant. The larger the raw material is, the greater the equipment is. Thus, there will be higher cost. Besides, the moisture of raw materials is another aspect needed to pay attention to. For biomass wood pellet production, the moisture of raw materials should be controlled at about 15%. If the moisture is high, it must be dried by drying machines or by natural drying method, and it will increase the cost for the whole wood production plant. (Read more: How to Make Wood Pellets?)

• Wood Pelletizing Machinery

When above two preparations have been done, then it comes to the selection of wood pelletizing machinery. Biomass pellet machine in the market is divided by its capacity (production output). The selection of wood pelletizing machinery should combinate many factors, like capacity, cost and the size of raw materials, and more. So, it is recommend to consult professional biomass pellet manufacturers for the selection of pellet mill machine and other auxiliary equipment. (Read more: Biomass Pellet Project Cost >>)

• Pellet Mill Manufacturer

It is better to visit your pellet mill manfuacturer for field investigation, which is faster and can provide more details to judge whether it is professional and reliable. After a number of comparisons to determine a good plan, and then sign a contract to buy your pellet mill machinery. It is better to buy all the equipment from the one biomass pelletizing machinery manufacturer, so that there is no trouble in the future. 

In short, to build a biomass pellet factory, do a good job in the early investigation, to find a reliable, professional biomass pellet machine manufacturers is very important, do not worry about after-sales problems, equipment use more worry.

 

How to Make Biomass Pellets from Wood Chips?

The complete wood chips pellet production plant typically consists of 10 wood pellet manufacturing process, from the storage of raw material to the package of the final product. The entire wood pellet production process adopts a modular design, and customers can freely customize it to meet the actual production needs and match the production process. In addition, our professional engineers will redesign the process according to the actual situation of the customer (raw material characteristics, site restrictions, etc.), and add or cut down the equipment to achieve the best production effect. The whole process of the wood chips pelletizing production line will be introduced in detail below.

Wood Chips Pellet Production Process

• Cleaning Process

Generally speaking, wood chips are leftovers from forest harvesting, lumbering, processing, etc., and sometimes some woodland shrubs are also a source of wood chips. The collected raw materials are not pure, and the roller screen needs to be used to remove large pieces of wood and other sundries, so as not to damage the subsequent biomass processing machines.

• Crushing Process

The raw material is pulverized into wood chips at this stage. Only the wood chips of the required size can be sent to the hammer mill. If the wood chips do not meet the requirements, they need to be crushed again with a wood chipper.

• Conveying Process

Since the pulverized wood chips are very light, and there is a certain amount of air circulation inside the machine, the wood chips cannot fall by gravity, so an induced draft fan and a cyclone dust collector should be used during transportation, which can not only transport the wood chips but also keep the environment clean.

• Drying Process

The moisture content of the raw material required for pellet making is 11% to 17%, so the raw material needs to be dried to reduce the water content. The drying equipment of the production line with different production capacities is different. The production line with a production capacity of less than 1 ton/day is suitable for using the airflow dryer, because the airflow dryer has low energy consumption, but can only reduce the water content by 20%. The production line with a production capacity of more than 1 ton per day is suitable for the use of a rotary dryer. The rotary dryer can dry wood chips in large quantities and can reduce the water content by 40%.

• Mixing Process

Considering that some raw materials need to use a binder when pellet making, the dried raw materials need to be sent to the mixer to mix the raw materials or mix the raw materials and the binder evenly and fully. Of course, if the raw material contains enough natural lignin, this part can be omitted.

• Pre-treatment Process

This is the last step before pelleting. The fully mixed raw materials need to be fed with water and steam before entering the pellet-making machine to improve the working efficiency of the pellet-making.

• Pelletizing Process

The core part of the wood chips pellet production line is the pelletizing process. In the pellet mill, the raw wood chips enter the die hole under the extrusion of the roller and are cut to the appropriate length by the cutter.

Wood Chips Pelletizing Processes and Machines

• Cooling Process

The temperature of the produced pellets can reach up to 98°C, and its structure is loose and easily broken. Therefore, the prepared pellets need to pass through the counter-flow cooling system to harden and cool for storage easily.

• Screening Process

No machine can guarantee a 100% forming rate, so the finished pellets usually come out with a small amount of powder, which needs to be sieved again before bagging to sieve out the powder in the pellets for reprocessing.

• Packing Process

The sieved pellets are packaged in sizes ranging from 10kg to 100kg and stitched with a thermoplastic sealer. Packed pellets should be kept out of direct sunlight and stored in a well-ventilated place.