Pelletizing Pine Wood: A Smart Investment in Renewable Energy
Pine wood is a common seen timber source in many countries like China, North America, Switzerland, Europe, etc. It is usually utilized to make furniture. As a result, there is plenty of waste like sawdust or wood shavings remained to be dealt with. One significant method is to make them into pellets by pellet machine.How to make pine wood pellets with pellet machine?
1. If the raw material is wood shaving, it needs to be pulverized into 3-5mm wood powder. If raw material is sawdust, it does not need to be pulverized.
2. Then dry the sawdust or wood powder. This process aims at decreasing its moisture content to 8-12%, so that it can be suitable for pelletization.
3. Convey the pine sawdust into the pellet machine. For processing large quantity of sawdust, usually ring die pellet mill is applied. The sawdust goes into the pelletizing chamber will be pressed between the roller and ring die and extruded out the round ring die holes. Then pellets are formed.
4. After that, pellets are cooled with a cooler. The reason is that the pellets just leave the pellet machine always have high temperature.
5. After cooling, wood pellets can be used or packed for sale. (See our wood pellet plant project)
Application of pine wood pellets made by pellet machine
- The pine wood pellets can be used for heating. They have high calorific value, so they can burn longer than other pellets. Also, their ash content is just 0.5%. In addition, they release only little amount of smoke during combustion.
- Can be used in power plants to generate electricity. Pine wood pellets are good fuel source to replace coal because of their high heat value.
- Also can be used as horse bedding and cat litter. Pine wood pellets have higher water and smell absorptivity. They are much cheaper than other horse bedding or cat litter materials.
By Shirley Wang
