Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant

2 Ton Per Hour Pellet Plant

We are a bit delayed in the installation of our 2 Ton Per Hour ( 2 TPH ) Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant . New date for commissioning have been push back to End of April 2011 .

Lots of minor problems with China Whole Line Design and Installation .

I admit we overlook a few areas and also the professionalism of China Machinery Supplier are in doubt especially in Project Management and also the linkage between each section in the Whole Line Plant .

But in the process we also learn a lot for our future expansion plan and possibly our new 2nd line maybe in 6 month to 1 year time .

We now believe that our pellet mill are one of the best from China and hopefully when it is in production it should give us above 1.2 TPH for the Model 420 unit with minimal maintenance .

Here are some of the photos during installation of machineries at my plant .

Current Pellet Mill / Pellet Mill Plant from China have the following problems :

a ) Pelet Mill Die cracking after short time of usage

b ) Roller Bearing need constant change

c ) Constant Jamming in the Pellet Mill Die Chamber

d ) Low Density of Wood Pellet Produced

e ) Sawdust need additives during production to ensure smooth output of pellet from Pellet Mill

We also found out that many China supplier are not genuine factory owner which means they buy and sell the machineries , thus technical wise they are not up to standard unless they are supplying the best machines from the best fabricator . Normally this is not the case as the buyer will haggle about pricing , therefore the supplier will tend to get the cheaper machines which will create problems in the end . How would you know which is the best machines from China , there is more than 100 supplier of pellet mill machineries from China , everyone say they supply the best . Unless you want to CAMP there to search for the best machines . For the record , I did 3 tour of duty to China to search for the best machineries .

Pre-requisite of establishing a Wood / EFB Pellet Manufacturing Business :

1 ) Stable source of sawdust or EFB

2 ) Total Investment - RM1 Million including machineries , electricity supply , local steel fabrication , forklifts & etc for a 2 TPH Whole Line Plant

3 ) Some technical knowledge on machineries

4 ) For now , market should not be a problem , it is a matter of pricing

Lately ( the last 3 months ) , my blog have generated tremendous search for wood pellet maybe due to the current high price of fossil fuel which at the time of writing , Nymex Oil Futures is at over USD100 per barrel . Inflation in China is also causing a problem as Wood Pellet Plant pricing have also increase from initial RM750,000 earlier to over RM850,000 now , at last count . Sawdust price have also been increasing locally . If price continue to rise , it might not be viable anymore to invest in Wood Pellet Business unless Wood Pellet price play catch up in the near term .

WOOD PELLET BURNER VS GASIFIER

COMPARISON
I believe we have talk in length on Wood Pellet Burner and Gasifier , but question come to mind what is the difference between this 2 .

I list the comparison between the 2 below .

I will explain in details the pro & con for wood pellet burner and gasifier .

Pricing

After countless conversation with so many potential user who is looking for change , the big stumbling block is PRICING AND DISTRUST for new technology .

How cheap can biomass and application equipment goes , no body knows , for now this is the price and there is payback calculation for you to judge .

After considering the price , customer will ask can I see how it works , SEEING IS BELIEVING !!! AGREED .

This problem come about due to so many fly by night equipment provider who have give this industries a bad name . So once it is spoilt , it will be very difficult to make amend .

I append below according to categories , the differences :

Technicality

As mentioned above technical specification for Gasifier are much more higher than simple Wood Pellet Burner . Therefore so many of the gasifier that came up in the market in Malaysia are not successful as we Malaysian have not yet achieve the speciality in Gasification . Unfortunately some potential investor suffer due to lack of information and sweet talk by good marketers .

Wood Pellet Burner are very simple machine with some ingenious controls and design which need very simple maintenance , therefore it can be so successful in Europe due to it's simplicity .

WHO need a sophisticated machine to do the same job for 5 times the price ! ! !

Efficiency

90 % Vs 75% , why ?

a ) all biomass are turned to ash , only the ash weight and loss of heat during combustion , therefore loss is only 10% for Wood Pellet Burner . Whereas for Gasifier , big portion ( 20 % ) are turned to carbon and therefore efficiency is only 75 % with heat loss . Unless you want to sell the carbon !!!

b ) In Wood Pellet Burner all the biomass are combusted in optimum Air Fuel Ratio ( AFR , 1 kg wood pellet to 5 kg of air ) and immediately the heat are channel into boiler / furnace , loss will be low as this happen instantaneously . Whereas for Gasifier it goes through a few process , pyrolysis , gasfication , syngas cleaning then only the syngas are channel to burner for burning . Moreover you must have very good burner to control the AFR otherwise you will not get good optimum combustion , causing more loss in efficiency


Ash / Carbon Discharge , Operator Needed and Cleaning / Servicing

As Gasification produce carbon which is higher in weight ( 20 % ) compared to fully combusted biomass where it only produce ash ( below 1% for wood pellet ) , therefore Wood Pellet Burner are much more simpler compared to Gasifier .

Moreover more monitoring are needed for Gasifier to ensure Gasification are optimum which is difficult to achieve consistently especially so if the biomass feed are inconsistent .

Gasifier end product is Syngas which is high in Tar level , to ensure burner are not clog , the syngas need to be clean , with scrubber and filtering , which in the end ( once a week , depending on system ) , need to be clean and service otherwise the Gasifier will stop working .

Control of Burner

Wood Pellet Burner as mentioned above are very simple but with good design equipment . Control in the case of firing into Boiler would be very simple , just fire into the boiler , when pressure in the boiler are reach the burner will go into sleep mode and the burner will fire again when pressure drop to lower level set , simply similar to diesel burner , that is why it is so easy .

In Gasifier case , the fuel for firing into boiler is Syngas , sometimes you get good composition syngas , sometimes you do not , so control will be difficult or it would not be optimum or lower in efficiency .

Pros for Gasifier - Application , Flexibility of Burner Positioning , Usefulness of Carbon and Cleanliness of Combustion

Unless you find you need this Pros , these are small benefit you need to forego to attained the pros of wood pellet burner .

You cannot get perfection unless you are willing to pay very high price .

REMEMBER GASIFIER IS 5 TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE !!!