Would you like to save money and enjoy the warmth of wood? Then you will surely be interested in how to make wood pellets.
Wood pellets are an excellent energy source for cooking and heating your home. They provide a great source of heat and warmth. Making your own pellets is an eco-friendly way to provide a renewable and biodegradable fuel source for stoves and fireplaces.
However, a pellet mill machine is recommended for producing pellets. This is because it is cheap and covers a limited area. Before moving on to how to make wood pellets, let’s take a look at what wood pellets are and how they can be used.
What are Wood Pellets?
Wood pellets are cylindrical pellets made from wood waste such as shavings, sawdust, bark, industrial waste, chunks, and slabs.
In recent years, the pellet fuel market has developed significantly.
Wood pellets are a great alternative to fossil fuels for domestic, cooking, and industrial use. They are a renewable energy source that burns more efficiently than coal and are increasingly used as an alternative fuel in homes and power plants.
Wood pellets are the wood heating technology of the future. Because wood pellets have a uniform size, energy content, and moisture level, they may be used in automated stoves and boilers, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Wood pellet stoves and boilers will light themselves as necessary, often utilizing a tiny electric ignitor that turns on for a brief period of time. Because the oxygen supply can be precisely regulated, pellet burners and boilers become highly efficient and emit minimal pollution.
Wood pellet stoves are typically 80-90% efficient. Pellet burners produce very little ash since they are so efficient – 2% or less of the volume of pellets burned becomes ash and when the sweep arrives to clear your chimney you will find the difference easily.
How to make Wood Pellets?
To start making wood pellets, you need to choose a pellet mill or pellet plant. You need to have a clear picture in your mind of your target production capacity, usage, and budget. This will help you decide which pellets are right for you.
If your planned capacity is more than 500 kg per hour, you should build a pellet plant. If the intended capacity is for domestic use only, a pellet mill is the best option. The production process of pellet mills and pellet production plants usually differs in terms of machine setup, complex machines used, and material preparation. Now that you know your goals, let’s start the process.
Here are some simple steps mentioned
- Collect the Raw Materials
- Raw Material Drying
- Sieving
- Pelletizing
- Cooling
- Storage
- Collect the Raw Materials
To start the process, you must first collect all raw materials such as sawdust, wood chips, and waste wood. For small bundles of wood pellets, you will need 4-5 buckets or 8-10 sawdust. Now start adding all the ingredients to the pellet mill machine.
Make sure all raw materials are processed in the same way, resulting in wood pellets with the same moisture content, burn time, heat output, and ash content. Also, make sure the size does not exceed 1 inch or 2.5 cm before putting the raw material into the pellet mill. You can use a press mill to reduce the size and make it smaller.
- Raw Material Drying
Before the raw material is put into the pellet mill, it must be completely dried of water and moisture. You can let it dry naturally in the sun for 24 hours, or you can use a tumble dryer, also called a flash dryer, which works at high temperatures.
There are tumblers that feed the ingredients continuously with hot air. Another option is a flatbed dryer that operates at low temperatures. In most cases, sawdust does not need to be dried.
If the sawdust has been stored in a humid climate or is slightly damp to the touch, then in a dry room it can be dried for 24 hours.
- Sieving
When producing wood pellets, wood flour may contain metals and stones. Therefore, these impurities must be filtered to ensure pellet purity. Stone traps are installed and large stones and other waste are manually removed in order to extract pollutant sources. Others, such as ferrous metals, are removed from the belt conveyor by magnets.
- Pelletizing
In this process, a pellet press is used to make pellets from raw materials. The sawdust is fed into high-pressure nozzles that structure the material into recognizable wood pellet structures. The sawdust bonds during this process and determines the durability, density, and size of the pellet.
A pellet press machine extrudes hot, soft wood pellets through the die-holes of a pellet mill with tremendous pressure. Consistency is essential as this is a critical step as some equipment requires a specific size of wood pellet.
- Cooling
In this step, the textured pellets are discharged from the cooling tower, making them harder to protect and strengthen. When the pellets leave the pressing plant they are very hot and brittle.
Therefore, until the product cools and dries, it should be handled as gently as possible. After cooling, the resulting moisture content is reduced to 6%, and the pellets are conveyed to storage on a conveyor belt.
- Storage
At this step, the pellet-making process is complete and it’s time to store the pellets. After sufficient residence time in the cooling tower, the wood pellets are transported to a storage unit for bagging. Store in a plastic bag or paper bag to prevent moisture and air from entering. Then store in a dry, cool place away from sunlight.
Wood pellets are a renewable fuel
Wood pellets are a renewable fuel. As long as the wood is sourced from managed forests (i.e. forests where more trees are being planted to replace trees that have been cut down), the wood is renewable. To get more wood, simply plant more trees. As the trees grew, they used solar energy to convert atmospheric CO2 into trees to grow.
The carbon dioxide emitted when the wood is burned is the same as the carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere by growing plants. This means that the total CO2 content in the atmosphere does not change. When a tree dies naturally, plants and animals eat it, eventually releasing an equal amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Burning wood only speeds up the process. Even considering the carbon emissions caused by fossil fuels used to generate the energy needed to plant, harvest, process, and transport fuels, replacing fossil fuels with wood fuels typically offsets CO2. – reduce emissions by over 90%.
Is it possible for wood pellets to be carbon neutral?
Wood and wood pellets are not climate neutral. This is because planting, harvesting, processing, and transporting pellets require some energy, and this energy is usually obtained from fossil fuels.
The production of wood pellets requires relatively more energy, especially compared to wood chips. Wood pellets are CO2 neutral if the entire process is driven by a CO2-neutral energy source. Compared to other fossil fuels, wood pellets (and wood) still emit much less CO2.
Conclusion
Wood pellets are an affordable and excellent fuel source for cooking and heating. So if you plan to save money, skim through this guide and use a pellet mill to make pellets. It’s an important step for the pellet’s final shape, fire resistance, and durability. so be careful not to skip it.