Woodmizer Sawdust Burner . . . . .

[Bioman]

Furby,

I didn't finish my thought, sorry.

If retail market price for BTU's is $300/ton, isn't $100/ton bulk pricing?  Bagged price may need to be $150-200/ton.  That is still a bargain. ;)

[Furby]

Let's convert it a bit to a common measure, how many yards of chips, equals a ton?
That's how landscaping chips are sold and how most folks will compare it.

[Bioman]

Here's your update on burning green chips and sawdust.

We built a small screen system with 1" round holes to screen chips.  We grabbed chips directly from the chip trailer and screened them.  We did a cold start that took only a few minutes to start.  The propane didn't even have to cycle a second time during the ignition process.  Here' what we found.

The auger needs to go up another size.  It ran, but you could tell it was boderline by the sounds it was making.

The auger needs to be slowed down a LOT when using chips.  The dense nature and relative slow burning of the chips means you have to turn down the feed rate or you end up with too much fuel in the pot.

Gasification of the chips takes awhile compared to dust.  The result is some mild smoke, but I don't believe it will be a problem.  The potential exists for smoke for a couple of minutes during the turned off mode.  Chips linger on the bottom for a short period of time whereas dust burns immediatly so there isn't smoke.

Fly ash will be more prevalent with chips.  We were running without the HX over the chamber so I don't know how much as will make it up the flue.

A mixture of both dust and chips will make a nice fuel.  In all cases though, dry fuel is still the most efficient to burn.  Plain old dry dust is the most controllable and cleanest to burn.

After this last bit of design work it's time to quit designing and start building and get these into the field.

[Bioman]

So let's do some rough math

Nominal output is 100 yards an hour
Cost is $375 an hour to grind
Average moisture content - 40%
Wet weight is 450 lbs per cubic yard
Dry weight is 270 lbs per cubic yard

That means 27,000 lbs (13.5 tons) an hour of dry fuel
Cost is $28 a ton dry

Market price for pellets and corn is $200/ton
That leaves $72/ton to grind the fuel down to dust and sell it at 1/2 the price of corn and pellets.

Certainly looks like we are on the right side of the equation.....or did I miss something?

Furby, from an earlier post....

[Furby]

Yup, missed it in there, sorry.

[Cedarman]

As we are in the grinding business in Ok, we have a keen interest in the Biomizer. We can pump out 15 tons of fairly dry (20% guessing) material per hour.  To change sizes is just a matter of changing screens.  We have an other idea too.  Also, with this dry material, we could bag on site. Palletize, load flat beds.  This would lower transportation costs immensely. 

So, this begs the question. Bioman, did you get a chance to run the bagged mulch? And what was the MC?

[farmerdoug]

Furby,

I see your point on the pricing.  Also right now TSC is selling wood pellets for 189/ton too.  But the market for the biomass is great at this point in the game.

Farmerdoug

[Bioman]

Cedarman,

The mulch wouldn't feed properly so we didn't check the MC.  We did use up the wood flour though, it was good fuel.

[Cedarman]

Bioman,
What kind of processing would need to be done to the mulch to make it work?
How do you measure mc in your samples?  I have a small scales.  What are the calculations?
Cedarman

[beenthere]

MC = ((wet - dry) / dry ) x 100

wet is wet weight
dry is oven-dry weight

If I follow the thread, seems a 3/4" screening of the material would be minimum processing. Bioman didn't say if they did that step before trying to burn your sample.

: :

[Bioman]

We used 1" screen for chips yesterday with good results.  We are upsizing the auger to handle the larger chips.

[beenthere]

Cedarman,

The mulch wouldn't feed properly so we didn't check the MC.  We did use up the wood flour though, it was good fuel.

bioman
Did you screen his mulch, and to what size? ...
If not,  : : ???

[Bioman]

We haven't screened it yet, but I will through the 1" holes.  I don't know what size of screen Cedarman used in his Rotochopper.

[Cedarman]

The grinder beats the wood into splinters rather than cutting it.  It makes great mulch because the splintery type material interlocks and does not blow or wash away.  For burning I would think this would cause some problem in material flow.  So a secondary processing may be needed.  The splinters tend to be about 2" long

[amberwood]

I was consiering the same problem. Most of our sawdust/chip is produced off the Mahoe and it produces long thin chips, up to 100mm long. They would def need to be reprocessed before they could be effectively screened. Maybe a pass through a small ex tree service chipper??

DTR

[Bioman]

Update:

We've been burning wet dust/chips without problem.  We resized the auger to 3" and material flows well.

Ideally, I'd like to mix our fines with chips through a 3/4" screen.  We produce about 150 tons of this type of mixture/week. 

We also tested some rice hull dust this morning.  This stuff is like talcum powder.  As you can imagine is pretty explosive and burns hot.  It was burning so hot it started melting the camo wrap on the hx that was sitting near the combustion chamber.  No other fuel has burned as hot as this stuff did.  Drawbacks to this fuel is the mess it creates when handling it and there is flyash with a fuel this fine.  No sign of slag or clinkers.

[Bioman]

We've officially released the application for test sites on the biomizer forum. 

The last test results were  superb and the machine is running great.  We can burn wet fuel and chips up to 1".  We pushed the machine to max and got it it up to the 250,000 range and it played out because the pumps produce less flow at the 200+ degrees range.  If we had a different pump we would have reached the 250,000 output.  Efficiency goes way down when you pump that much heat through, so we're still only going to advertise 150,000 output.  We can confidently say the small burner produces at this rate of OUTPUT at high efficiency. 

We're shifting all of our resources to manufacturing of the test burners at this point.   

[slowzuki]

I quickly read the application info and noted a 6000$ discount to those chosen... What is the actual cost to be a tester?

[Bioman]

The test machines are selling for $6000.  This includes the $1100 (cost) touch screen control with a lot more user interface than will be on the standard machines that will be closer to the $8000 range.  The fuel bin is a 100 gallon tank that can be retrofitted up to 250 gallons very easily.  The hx is an 80 gallon high efficiency water tank (open system).  All options will be standard on the test machines, and we're going to have unlimited warranty for the first couple of years (see the legal stuff on the web site).  The unit will also have an integrated pump.  There will also be some specialty stuff like clothing, hats etc that will be available to the 'development team' exclusively.

Cost for plumbing the facility to be heated will be up to the customer.  We are developing relatationships with vendors for supplies and expertise in installation design, so we will be able to offer those services as well.

Any upgrades we chose to install will be N/C and optional feed systems etc will heavily discounted as well.

[jpgreen]

Bioman...

I'm interested in becoming a tester/installing dealer. This technology is something that would be of great value to our area and surrounding counties.

If there may be an opportunity please tell me how to proceed...  8)

[ronwood]

jpgreen,

Go to bioman's website and it has the application there.

Ron

[Furby]

Website can be jumped to from the left side of the page......... Bio-Mizer!

[rfalk]

A friend of mine has a machine that compresses sawdust and planer shavings into hockey puck sized briquettes.....slow, but he says they burn great....Northtech Industrial Machinery makes it (China)...he planes and saws reclaimed wood, so his MC is low...may need to dry sawmill dust before using....

http://www.northtechmachinery.com/

[farmerdoug]

Bioman,

How is the signup for the biomizers coming?  Have you started production of the test units yet?  Are you getting alot of interest in the signup?

Bringing this back up as I am sure there is alot of people interested in this on here.

Farmerdoug

[Bioman]

We are going to have a tough time deciding on the test group.  The majority of the applicants appear to be highly qualified to work with us.  The first two units are going to be finished this week.  We're chasing out the final small changes to the models, prints etc so the next batch will be quicker. 

We're going to notify people of our choice of test sites the last week of November and start shipping machines the first week of December. 

We've also been continuing our miscellaneous tests and making small improvements to the machine and feed system. 

ElectricAl, if you are reading this I wanted to let you know we are incorporating a version of your suggestion to get warm air into the fuel bin.  I think it is going to work well.  I'll send pictures once we've tested.

We're also working up video clips of 'how things work' and will release a series of those when we're ready to start shipping.  I'm sure that as soon as the machines are in the hands of customers, it won't be long before the machines are taken apart to see what makes them tick.   ;)   So, video clips of how it works won't hurt us at that point.  Patents are being applied for.

I'm pretty sure we had some spies in here one weekend pretending to be interested customers but were really just checking the machine out.      They played dumb but knew to much......oh well.