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Making Pellets, a solution

Started by Brad_S., February 20, 2007, 07:40:34 PM

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StorminN

Karl,

Sorry to hear the die got plugged up. While you've got it apart, could you take some pictures and post them? I'd love to see some pictures of the dies, give me an idea of how exactly they work. I've seen pictures of the bigger machines, both the American-made ones (CPM?) and the German made ones, but I've never seen one of these small (Chinese?) ones.

Not sure what type of 250 gallon bulk tank you're talking about. I have some 275 gallon totes, they look like this:


Mine only have a 2" pipe fitting on the bottom... so I don't think they would work for pellets, I've got a feeling if the pellets would bridge (jam) as they tried to exit the tote. Around here, about five years ago we used to be able to get these totes for $25 each, then with biodiesel and everything else going on, the price has gone up and now they're about $150 each at the local farm store, sometimes less at auction. $100 each is a good price, $100 for three is a great price.

Yeah, I'm not sure how that Kernel Express rig works... perhaps pneumatic. All the pictures are from too far away and on the wrong side. You can see in their photo gallery that they are using the Super Sacks, too. The sacks I have are NOT watertight... they might be considered water resistant, but they are not tight. The pellets would have to be stored somewhere dry.


Happiness... is a sharp saw.

StorminN

WH_Conley,

We have a soils / bark place around the corner from our factory... we dump the sawdust there and they mix it with manure and soil, maybe some chopped up bark?, and compost it in big piles that steam in the wintertime. They sell it as nice black topsoil. I'm not sure of the ratios that they mix it at, but I can ask. Our sawdust is all kiln-dried stuff to begin with. I'll get some pics...

-N.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

Karl_N.

I will take some pictures when I get the die back from the machine shop. I took it there to have it reamed out. Apparently you can achieve that store bought shiny smooth look of a quality pellet with perfectly smooth (bores?) holes. I would need to order a carbide reamer and borrow someone's drill press to do this so I figured at least this time I would let the pros do it. I pulled the screen out of my hammer mill after a bunch of cussing and knuckle bleeding. That thing was in there wicked tight. I'm drilling bigger holes in it, probably too big. My die is 6mm and I'm drilling the holes of the hammer mill out at about 1/4" I'm not sure if it will just make it harder to pelletize the bigger stuff but the original holes are like pin pricks. The sawdust that finally came out was super fine and of course took forever to process. If it doesn't work for this size particle I will just ask for the screens that probably should have come with the mill in the first place. I would think it would come with at least two different sizes. We'll see, if not they can't be too expensive. ::)

SwampDonkey

Well Florida has gone big in the pellet making industry. Apparently, there is a new 500,000 metric tonne/year pellet making facility in Florida. It's the worlds largest. It has beat the former champion Pinnacle Pellets in BC. The European market, primarily  industrial power plants who seeing the increased supply chain, have been very successful in bidding one supplier against the other to keep the prices down.

The plant in Florida processes 120 truckloads of pine logs a day. The pellets leave the plant on railcars... 20 railcars every day. The pellets travel 60 miles to the Port of Panama City, on the Gulf Coast, where they are loaded onto ships and sent to Europe. Green Circle Bio Energy – which owns this plant – is a Swedish company. The European power plants crush the pellets up, mix them with coal dust, and turn them into electricity. Apparently, the power stations can burn up to 10% wood in their coal plants without making any modifications to the equipment.

This year the British government announced the largest bio-energy power plant in the world. It will generate 350 megawatts of power. The plant will run on American wood chips.

Two more giant pellet plants are under construction in Alabama and Georgia right now.

[sources: Atlantic Forestry Review, Steve Sjuggerud's Daily Wealth]
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

StorminN

Quote from: SwampDonkey on November 10, 2008, 05:41:05 PMThe European power plants crush the pellets up, mix them with coal dust, and turn them into electricity. Apparently, the power stations can burn up to 10% wood in their coal plants without making any modifications to the equipment.

Seems like a waste to expend a bunch of energy making pellets, and then crush them up again... couldn't they just ship baled or compressed, Super Sacked sawdust?

-Norm.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

Ron Wenrich

Seems like you use more energy than you get when you add the cost of the fuel and energy in transportation and processing.  I guess its supposed to make it up in less carbon emissions.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

SwampDonkey

Apparently, that's the drive Ron, to meet their 2020 emissions goal under Kyoto. You guys probably all see what I do. It's just passing the emissions onto someone else that doesn't follow Kyoto using their resources to do it. Although if it's good forestry behind it and helps the industry it can't all be negative, admittedly a half truth that isn't being told though. :/
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

I read a casual mention that even Russia with it's vast forest land is tightening down exports of raw forest products to Europe and other Asian countries because of pubic opinion over there. Also, those South American plantations are being converted to agriculture acreage. This will no doubt tighten global wood supply and increase demand from NA. This comes from a report written by investment bankers.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Karl_N.

I finally got some pictures uploaded onto the blog. Sorry it took so long. I have been consumed by my need for a kiln as I'm finding the chips are just too wet. I have a pretty good plan going in my head as to how to dry them. It seems lots of folks are thinking of how to dry biomass inexpensively these day. Ever think kiln dried sawdust would be such a hot commodity?  http://blog.sleepersriveralternative.com/?p=197

beenthere

Karl_N
How is the project shaping up?

Found some material that will work in the pelletizer machine?

Are you trying to get over the hurdle of high moisture content of the material, or continuing to look into trying to dry it someway?

Hope some of it is working out for you.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Karl_N.

I am building a dryer for the chips. Moisture is the big hurdle for sure. If I can control the moisture I might have it licked.

SwampDonkey

One of our forum members is the plant manager for a pellet plant that his local woodlot owners have invested into. Right now with wood markets depressed in the area there is a shortage of poor wood because harvesting is kind of bottomed out. So they are approaching DNR for a small crown allocation as a back up source. The plant will employ 10 people. No government funding gone into the operation. It appears that most of the product will be sold locally, although at first they planned to export. That has shifted since local demand is high and most suppliers now can't meet the demand.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Ron Wenrich

Wouldn't it be easier to dry the chips after the hammermill?  Smaller pieces are easier to dry.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Karl_N.

Wet chips do not run through the hammer mill very well. The wet sawdust coats the screen at the bottom and clogs it up making production fall way off. I'm thinking too that chips don't clump quite like sawdust which perhaps gives the mass more surface area. Just a guess though.

Ron Wenrich

What about doing a partial dry on the chips.  Just enough to hammermill them, then dry the rest before processing.  My thinking is that it would be less energy intensive than trying to get a big chip down to the right MC for pressing.

I remember a guy that used to dry planer shavings from green wood.  At first he just used a clothes dryer.  The electric got to be too expensive.  He then used a tumble dryer that used a salamander to blow in hot air.  It worked pretty good because the material was always being agitated and kept it from just drying from just one side.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

SwampDonkey

I think Ron has a good idea there, and instead of using propane, just run a blower off a wood furnace into it. That's how softwood cones are dried only I think they are using duct work from an oil furnace. But if you have wood all round ya, use wood. I think this was discussed before on the forum by another operation. Maybe it's De Ja Vue. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Karl_N.

Hmm, that sounds good. I'm off the grid, so I don't have a whole lot of power especially these days. Eventually some solar fans will be in order but for right now I am trying to do this as cheaply as possible. The chips coming out of the chipper are pretty small to begin with so I think they have a good amount of surface area compared to their volume. The thing is half way built sort of so I'm going to give it a go. I'll keep you posted.

Ron Scott

PELLET FUELS

New England Pellet Sued For Millions Of Dollars By CT Officials,
The suit, accuses New England Pellet and its two owners of preselling
between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of pellets used to heat special
wood-burning pellet stoves to customers in Connecticut and Massachusetts
http://www.timberbuysell.com/Community/DisplayNews.asp?id=3916

Smartwood News
~Ron

Karl_N.

So the dryer is coming along.
I'm having trouble uploading pictures here and on the blog so I'll just have to describe what I'm thinking and hope that you all can envision it. Basically I have a heat chamber that is about 8x4x4 that will house a barrel stove. The pipe will run the length of it and come out the back wall. Above the heat chamber will be the drying chamber. The drying chamber is 8x4x4 as well. The floor of the drying chamber is made of a sheet of fairly stiff steel with diamond shaped 1/4" holes in it. Pretty heavy duty. It's being held up by 2x4 joists at about 21" o.c. These joists along with the rim joist basically set the chamber up into 4 separate bays. I'm setting studs on top of the rim joist and flat to- the opposite of how you would normally stud a wall. This is so I can run screening on both sides of the 2x4 and create a separation of these bays but still allow direct heat and air flow up through the structure. You with me so far? So now I have four bays segmented off with mesh screening for walls. I do have a 2x4 in the center as well for support and the ends have a space for airflow as well. I'm further separating these four bays with removable tabs that run across the structure. I have 3 different compartments in each bay. The tabs are made out of the same type of steel I have for the floor and run on rails nailed to my studs. The idea is that I will hoe out the dryed material in the bottom chambers where they will dry the fastest. When the compartment is empty, I'll pull out the first tab or removable platform-what have you, and the chips in that compartment will fall down into the next one. Reinsert the tab, spill the chips down from the next chamber- reload from the top. I'm hoping the tabs will redistribute the chips enough to dry everything evenly but that may be asking too much. We shall see. As soon as I can figure out the picture thing I'll post them. I should have the structure built tommorrow. I will have to have the steel cut. blog.sleepersriveralternative.com

slinger

Joined this forum because I burn wood but my professional interest is bio-energy.  I attended a bio energy conference last week in northern Missouri where one of the presenters spoke about the cooperative he is in volved in that makes pellets from biomass.  Everything from ragweed to forestry slash.  One of the obstacles he mentioned was how to handle the grit (silica) that is attached to the plant material.  It seems if you don't find a way to deal with it your dies will wear out very quickly.  They invented a process to handle it (patented) The cooperative sells to a coal fired power plant, the plant adds the pellets to the coal conveyor (on top) and get carbon credits for using renewables.  The cooperative is paying about $55.00 per ton for dry ~10% moisture biomass (hay, sawdust, urban wastes...).  The presenter said that their is a huge interst at a federal level on their progress and process.
That's going to leave a mark.

Fla._Deadheader


Just read an article about Used Coffee grounds. Make Biodiesel first, then make Pellets for stoves. Imagine the piles of grounds from truck stops alone ???
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Tom Sawyer

I talked to someone who tried to extract oil from used coffee grounds.  In their experience there wasn't enough oil left in the grounds after they were boiled to make it worth while.  No reason why you couldn't pelletize them though.

Tom

Fla._Deadheader


Part of the report.

  "Spent coffee grounds are about 15 percent oil, which is only slightly less than many of the other biodiesel feedstocks. Since the world produces over 16 billion pounds of coffee per year, there is a constant and cheap supply of solid coffee waste. Kondamudi, Mohapatra, and Misra also predict that biodiesel from coffee grounds would be more stable than those from other sources because coffee contains antioxidants that would slow down degradation.

The researchers extracted oils from Starbuck's spent coffee grounds, and went on to perform a standard transesterification process to convert the oil to biodiesel using methanol (a type of alcohol) and potassium hydroxide (a base for catalyzing the reaction). They were able to convert 100 percent of the oil in the grounds into biodiesel; both the extracted oil and biodiesel were stable for more than a month, which is sufficient for industrial applications.

After the oil is extracted, the grounds can still be used for compost or fuel pellets. The authors estimated that, if spent grounds were converted into biodiesel and fuel pellets in the U.S., it's possible to make about $8 million in profit per year. On a worldwide scale, based on the amount of coffee that is used, 340 million gallons of biodiesel can be produced from spent grounds.".
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Tom Sawyer

Did it say their extraction method?  The person I talked to was trying to extract using a screw press.  Maybe a different method would work better.

Tom

Fla._Deadheader

All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

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