Pellet Machines

Making pellets at first may seem very simple. Many people are aware that the main piece of equipment used to produce pellets are known as pellet machines, or maybe pellet mills or pellet presses. Some are under the impression you simply put wood fibre into the machines and it is compressed into pellet form. The truth could not be further from this simplistic view. Many factors and challenges impact on pellet quality and the efficiency of the process. Many pellet manufactures regard using pellet machines as more of an art than an exact science. The user needs the knowledge and experience to recognize who the process is performing. If the operation is not performing as is should, a competent user will be able to see and understand what is happening and either adjust the material or equipment accordingly. Even small changes can make a huge effect to pellet machines. for example, studies have shown a 1 percent increase in moisture content from the ideal percentage can increase energy consumption of pellet machines by 30%. If you think of the implications of this to production costs, understanding the ideal characteristics the raw material requires for pellet quality and low energy consumption on the pellet machines is vital. Another presumption, that could prove to be very costly is that all pellet machines are pretty much the same, and can process all biomass materials. This is simply not the case at all.

Wood Pellet Machine and Other Machines

Wood fibre is a high density material compared to grasses and straws, and most pellet machines were originally designed to process animal feed from these low density materials. Many of these machines are sold on the second hand market by people interested in making wood pellets. Only once they try to operate the machines do they realize this equipment lacks sufficient power, and other features to compress wood into pellet form. Wood pellet machines operate a much lower speed than those used specially to process lower density materials such as straws and grasses. Wood pellet machines have to operate a lower speeds to increase the torque available to the machine, and increase the amount of time the pellet spends under compression in the die template. Wood has to be heated to higher temperature than other materials to release the natural binding agent lignin.

Wood Pellet Biomass and Heating Units

Pellets have a uniform size, shape, density and moisture content. Therefore each pellet contains the same value of energy and this therefore means systems can be designed to control the feed rates of pellets into a fire to maintain a specific temperature. This is simply not possible with log heating systems, and more difficult with wood chip systems. Therefore wood pellet are ideal particularly for the domestic market. Pellet stove and boilers are now very popular.

Making Wood Pellet and Equipment

Making wood pellets does not just mean using pellet machines. Pellet machines need the right raw material to perform correctly, this therefore means the correct particle size and moisture content. To reduce the wood to size equipment such as hammer mill can be used and for drying pipe dryers of rotary drum dryers.

PelHeat Wood Pellet Production Guide

At PelHeat we have many years of experience in pellet production, and we provide a pellet production consultation service. The PelHeat guide download will show you how to make wood and other fuel pellets.

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The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Pellet Machines

The PelHeat Wood Pellet Production Guide provides an introduction to how biomass pellets and wood pellets are produced. The guide covers how a pellet mill,

pellet press and pellet machine operate to manufacture wood fuel pellets. Several factors influence the quality of pellet fuel and wood pellet machines