What Equipment Do You Need To Make Pellets?

Obviously you require a pellet mill, but besides a pellet press what other equipment do you require? Well it does depend on your raw material, so the example below is just one of many. For size reduction the hammer mill is usually the best choice, as its screen can almost guarantee all particles will be reduced to a suitable size. To make the process more automated a trough auger maybe used to feed the hammer mill at a stead speed. The hammer mill will actually perform better with a consistent loading, which is not possible by hand. Now that we have small consistent particles we need to analysis them, what is their moisture content and will they bind on their own? In terms of moisture there is no one ideal for all materials, but an average of 15% seems to work best in most cases. It is very important thought that material has a consistent moisture content through the batch. For instance if a wet patch goes through the pellet mill of much higher than 15% this could potentially block the die due to a pressure increase. This could result in the pellet plant been down for several hours. Therefore a batch mixer is normally a good idea to remove such an issue. In our pellet mills on the small pellet plants we have a turbulator within the pellet mill. This is a series of spinning spikes that blends the material. After the pellet mill you then need to remove fines from the finished pellets. Fines can then be placed back into the pellet mill. After fines removal you then need to cool the pellets. On our small pellet plants we do this by slowly moving the pellets up a conveyor while fans pass air over the pellets. The pellets are now ready for packaging and storage. If they are wood pellets for fuel, they are usually packed into 20kg plastic bags for the domestic market. For the industrial market the pellets may be loaded into dumpy bags or into a silo ready for a tank to come and collect the pellets to deliver them to the customer. When we design a pellet plant we look at each customers unique requirements. We also design plants that can be easily upgraded in capacity.