The True Range Of Fuel Pellets

When we first started to produce fuel pellets back in 2006, our research was not just to produce a range of wood pellets but a whole manor of biomass fuel pellets. We knew that potentially burning some of these other fuel pellets may create issues within the wood pellet boiler. However we purchased a Tatano wood pellet boiler, which can handle a wide range of ash contents. After producing some wood pellets from a chipped cherry tree, we began to look at what other material we had available which we could pellet. The first was we produced some field hay, ran this trough the hammer mill and then produced some pellets. At the time we were using a small flat die Chinese pellet press. Producing the wood pellets from the cherry tree was very difficult, and we had to pass the material through about 10 times. However the field hay was much easier to press, after all this is what the small pellet mills from China were designed for, to produce animal feed pellets on the farm. However we knew that we could not really burn these fuel pellets without causing some serious damage to the pellet boiler due to very high corrosion from the hay. We then produced some pellets from barley straw, these pellets we did burn in the pellet boiler which produced quite a lot of ash and a clinker formation like a birds nest. However the heat value was quite good. When it comes to biomass fuel pellets its about finding a material that grows quickly and will not be too corrosive. From our experience and research the best two options we think are short rotation coppice willow and hemp. These materials provide the best balance between crop productivity and low corrosive and low ash fuel. Currently the pellet fuel market is very under developed, with premium wood pellets taking almost complete market share. However this will change for the simple reasons, it has to. There are simply not enough resources for premium wood pellet production, and we need hemp and willow. If you require equipment, we can supply pellet mills or pellet plants on any scale.