Facts About Pellet Mill

September 16, 2009

By system

Fuel pellets, for example wood pellets are set to be one of the main sources of heat for homes and buildings in the future. Almost any cellulose raw material can be turned into fuel pellets, for example straws, grasses and wood to name but a few, collectively they are referred to a biomass. The key to the pellets success and huge potential are its basic properties to resemble the flow of a liquid and high energy density. This means a lot of energy can be stored within a small space and can be metered into a pellet burner to provide heat on demand. This replicates the technology of current gas and oil systems, however fuel pellets made from biomass are a green environmental fuel, and they do not contribute to the current problem of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Biomass pellets are regarded as a carbon neutral energy source, the reasons for this is it does not contribute to additional levels of carbon dioxide unlike fossil fuels. As biomass grows it uses carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, during burning the CO2 is released, and new plants use ths CO2 to grow. So when you burn biomass you are simply placing that same carbon back into the air. And as you still need more biomass for energy you grow more biomass and the cycle continues.

The problem however, is biomass in terms of unprocessed wood, straw and grass is very awkward to handle, has huge differences in moisture content and per square foot doesn’t really contain that much energy. If you think about these issues when trying to create a good efficient self-fueling fire you can see the problem. We need to tern this raw material and raw potential energy into something we can use. The simplest and most cost effective way to do this is to compress it into a uniform shape, a pellet. Pellets resemble a colouring crayon, for most pellet stoves and boilers they have a diameter of either 6mm or 8mm so they can move well through the auger system that feeds to the stove or boiler.

So you wish to tern your raw biomass material into a pellet to use in a pellet stove or boiler, you have pre-milled the material into a small uniform size and its ready for the pellet mill. When this milled material enters the pellet mill it is compressed between a roller and a die. The die has the holes to make the pellets, as stated these could be either 6mm or 8mm for your stove, but really many different sizes can be made for different purposes. The material gets compressed by the roller through the die, and heat and pressure re-form the material into a pellet. As more material enters the pellet mill the process continues. The pellets come out of the pellet mill hot and soft, once they have cooled they are hard and dense and ready for use.

Learn more about Wood Pellet Equipment and How to Make Wood Pellets

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