Yes this one is huge, capable of combusting 2 ton per hour of rice husk. This unit were use to supply hot gas to a ball mill in a cement plant in the Philippines.
6,000,000 KCal/Hr HGG
It is equip with sensors and inverters for control from a DCS which is 50 meter away. Only one person are posted on site and monitoring and control are carried out from the control room.
Key Features of the HGG
- 18 inch furnace wall with extra outer insulation for very low heat loss
- Automatic Deashing
- Automatic Feeding
- Inverter for FD and ID Fan
- PLC built in
- Ash Auto Mix to Ball Mill
- Over Temperature Release Vent
- and many more
PLC control in DCS
Maximum Savings of RM4,000 per hour is possible when compared to the use of fuel oil for combustion.
The last 6 months was hectic, nevertheless installing and commissioning them successfully was most satisfying.
Much improvement have been added to these plant which makes pelleting success a breeze, not many can claim good pelleting within few days of commissioning .
4 pellet mill
2 pellet mill
1 pellet mill in operation
If you notice the pellet quality , there is little dust and pellet was just nicely compact ( not black ) and the length is what was set by the knife ( not short or broken ). I believe those who produce this kind of pellet will have very low electricity consumption and low wear and tear on parts .
As for us , our motto is finding the " SWEETEST SPOT " . Achieving this will automatically reduce tremendous cost thus higher profit per ton .
GOOD DAY TO ALL
It have been quite some time since I last blog due to my moonlighting in a biomass power plant on top of the normal business of setting up pellet plant . After the power plant stint , much needed experience were gained and would be useful for future opportunities that would arise .
Currently we are setting up a new pellet plant with capacity of 4 ton per hour with initial target production of 1,200 ton per month . Production will increase to 2,000 ton per month within 6 month of commissioning . As we have space and electricity supply ( main factor to go big ) and possibly sufficient raw material , it is hope that capacity can be increase to 5,000 ton per month in a few years ( finger crossed ) .
The new plant with much design and engineering upgrade as compared to the old plant would cut down workers to bare minimum of 4 worker per shift for the whole line , thus pushing operation to 3 shifts would be easily achievable .
Some upgrades as below :
1 ) All conveyor are connected , no human intervention , reduce fine dust dusty environment
2 ) Use of inverter for motors to control speed when changes happens
3 ) All storage area for raw material are calculated and engineered to ensure non stop operation even though there is prolong holiday or shortage of raw material , up time per annum can be push beyond 300 days . We do not just take off the shelf design for this plant after our first plant many many problems .
4 ) many more upgrades
Lastly , any taker for our pellet please contact us at
Maybe I am not convincing enough in my statement that PELLETING is very difficult .
My records and visits to many pelleting plant , be it Wood or EFB Pellet , till todate the failure is nearly approaching 20 plant , big and small included . Definitely the number is much higher than this figure .
Potential Investor must understand the reason behind it to figure out why so many failure in this industries .
I append the major factor for the failure :
1 ) Wrong Machineries
Pelleting process need very high pressure to bind the dust back into pellet , many machineries are not able to cope with the HIGH PRESSURE and thus will be damage before it even start to really produce pellet .Talking about pressure , do you know how it work ?
Pelleting need dry dust , dryer are needed to do the job , that is why American Dryer price are in the range of USD1 Million and above , the reason is you need consistent Moisture Dust to be able to produce consistently good grade pellet , otherwise there will be no pellet at all . I doubt many understand the science of drying !!
Small Pellet Mill smaller than 500 kg / hour are a definite no no unless you are willing to put your money to burn , go calculate the returns !!!
Go look at my video on Wood Pellet Manufacturing again , look at the rate of output and then compare the price of machineries . Then go visit the supplier and look at their output to be convince .
The above are only 20% of the main factor , if you do not know about the above , please do not invest , do your homework again , don't waste the precious cash for FAILURE .
2 ) Service and Training
I did mentioned earlier about this . The machineries from China is cheap because they do not provide proper Service and Training , this cost will easily increase their pricing by at least 20% . Low price act as an inducement for potential investor , so many will jump in but end up without anyone to turn to when failure stare at them
Supplier of machineries are just supplier , I am convince many are great Marketeer , they have never run a pelleting plant before . So when the going gets tough the supplier do not get going , they just ignore you .... , sounds familiar I guess .
Supplier are from China , they are not locals , they cannot stay long to guide and train local staff , so you can guess what will happen if problems start to crop up , who you gonna call !!
3 ) Experience and Skill
Ask yourself , how much you know about Biomass and Manufacturing , I would say , if you are going to invest based on the so many inquiries you get from the market , please keep your cash in the Bank , at least it earn interest . If you do not have over few years on Material experience and few years in manufacturing it is a definite no no to invest
Do you have an enquiring and analytical mind ? Every action will have a reaction , when something happen there must be REASONS why it happen , it cannot happen just out of nothing . There is a Chinese saying , Die also don't know because of what !! I am saying this because this will happen many many times and you will need your skill and experience to overcome it
Mark my word , go check around before you really decide to invest in this industry . There are too many failure which is not good for this industry overall .
We refer to the data gathered during the running of BSR500 in our furnace which channel hot flue gas to drum dryer to dry sawdust .
Below you can find a table which shows our furnace burning wood offcut , wood pellet with Pellet Burner Model BSR500 and compared it with diesel . ( based on calculation )
The table shows that Wood Pellet with the correct Pellet Burner are capable of competing with even the lowest cost fuel . The reasons are as follows :
1 ) Burning wood are OLD TRADITIONAL METHOD of producing heat , so the efficiency are very low , we gather that if the wood offcut calorific value is 2,500 KCal / kg , the efficiency is only 36% as compared to 80% for wood pellet with the Correct Pellet Burner .
2 ) Wood Offcut have fluctuating calorific value , the feeding would not be consistent , the air fuel ratio will be different , so the worker tend to blow air full blast thus lowering the temperature in the furnace in the end causing higher consumption of wood to maintain high temperature .
3 ) Pellet Burner work exactly like Diesel Burner , it fires when temperature drop to lower set value and stop firing when it reach the upper set value . This will ensure no wastage of over firing or under firing .
4 ) If you have seen worker work at furnace then you will know what I mean with this statement .
" FEED THE FURNACE FULL AND SIT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE " .
HOW CAN YOU GET EFFICIENCY WHEN THE FURNACE IS FULL BUT NOT BURNING , worst still plenty of smoke will come out from the chimney waiting for DOE to write you a summon . This will also cause temperature to drop until your production are lowered and this cause money too . That is why some company keep using Diesel Burner even though biomass are much cheaper because loss from production are much more higher than savings .
As to the comparing with Diesel you can see the savings come up to 75% . This is a lot of money if you are burning RM100,000 of Diesel per month .
If you are in this Situation , please consider a Wood Pellet Burner :
1 ) Burning Diesel / Gas
2 ) Material Dried not dry enough or not up to specification
3 ) Dryer output too low
4 ) Furnace too small
5 ) Factory space too small for big biomass boiler
6 ) Want to increase capacity of furnace
7 ) Heating / Drying are not consistent
8 ) Shortage of workers
9) If you love mankind , do your part in reducing CO2 increase
I get many calls enquiring about pelletisation of EFB ( Empty Fruit Bunch ). We did sample production many months back , it was easy for us as EFB is a single species raw material as compared to wood sawdust where the range of wood density varies widely which is difficult to control during material preparation . You can see the quality of EFB Pellet from the test run was of higher quality in terms of length and density ( Shinier ) . The tricks of getting good quality EFB Pellet is at the material preparation side . If the input quality is good and with properly setup Pellet Mill there will be no problem in pelleting EFB .
EFB Pelleting Plant is more expensive compared to Wood Pelleting Plant as material preparation section will be needed to process EFB strand into smaller particles . EFB Input can be in the form of Whole Bunch EFB or Shredded EFB . Shredded EFB is the result of EFB being pressed in Palm Oil Mill for additional oil extraction .
EFB Plant setup are therefore different from Wood Pellet Plant because of additional machineries and thus planning ahead will bring tremendous profit later .
In the case ot Shredded EFB or Pressed EFB , it need to be cut to shorter length . Thereafter , I would like to Dry it here when the EFB is in short length . But there are other ways to do this depending on your setup and dryer capability .
Material Sizing is very important before the material enter pellet mill otherwise if the strand is too long it will choke the Pellet Mill and jammed the machine . This is where the skill and experience comes into play .
Some say Flat Die Pellet Mill is better and some argue Ring Die is as good , this depends on the " DRIVER " if you get what I mean !!!
The good pellet mill is the one that give you good quality pellet and high efficiency with minimal maintenance and downtime .
" DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS STUNT WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE "
There are many cases of failure to do it right from start and in the process losses are huge . Get correct advice from reputable and reliable supplier with know how to start . Many a times the seller of machineries just want to close sales and promise you the sky where in fact ( and most does ) they do not have the skill to run a pellet plant , worst if their machineries are not reliable . I have been to many plant which is a failure , my statistic , 7 - 8 out of 10 are failures or loss plenty of money before they can even start to make profit .
Quality Control and Research and Development Programme
Manufacturing is define as :
The process of converting raw materials , components or parts into finished goods that meet a customer's expectations or specifications .
That being said , I would like to add , to be able to make profit the whole process is a race against time to reach optimum level of operation in shortest possible time .
As of now I believe there are more than 10 wood pellet plant in Malaysia , probably over half have difficulties in producing high quality pellet and running at low efficiencies . Some are not running at all . I admit mine are also having problems with breakdown here and there , but importantly improvement are carried out after each obstacles thus weakness becomes strength .
Wood Pelleting are more an arts rather than skill . There are just too many variables especially for China Made Machines .
Unless and until you get all the parameter right , it is near to impossible to get high efficiency and quality .
In many organisation QC and R & D are lacking especially in the SME . This is the nature of business as it is too costly to setup and followup . But without these you would be FLYING BLIND , that is what happen and the blame is simple , on the machine . No doubt , China Machine is bad but there are ways to go around to get it better . Unless you are willing to invest in American or European Machines which will cost a bomb .
In wood pelleting , the person in charge MUST be able to setup proper recording so that improvement can be carried out . Proper records are just like a GPS in a foreign country . You use it ( the records ) to see :
1 ) Who can help
2 ) What happened
3 ) Where are you now and where are you going
4 ) When can you arrive
5 ) Why things happen
6 ) How did it happen
Remember the 5 W's and H
!! GHOSTBUSTER !! SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Imagine that you are starting , you get into problem , the supplier of the machines did not give correct procedure ( friend , they are seller of machines , they will promise you sky to sell , they are not production man , how do you expect them to give full range of advice when we are paying pittance for the machines ) and your machine are damage or you are running at very low effciency .
What do you do ???
You try and try , after 2 months time loss you give up , losses amounts to RM50,000 or more , you still want to carry on but do not know where to start and when can solve all this problems . Sounds very familiar , it happen to me too !!
What do you do ??? or better WHO YOU GONNA CALL !!! GHOSTBUSTER , CALL ME .
For now enjoy the song & video .
Word of Advise , if you are not able to solve the problems in 2 months , it is not possible for me to solve it by phone , it is just impossible , there are just too many parameters and you will need tools to help just like the GPS .
With all the advice and tools hopefully you are on the way for higher efficiency and higher quality of wood pellet .
Many people called but are unwilling to pay ( no free lunch ) , so advice from the phone are limited in quality , they try the method advised still doesn't work , it won't work , we take 6 months of blood sweat and tears to perfecting our method , so with 30 minutes advise you expect it to work , I wish how simple it is .
In fact I would advise , after you have commission your machine and it does not perform to expectation within 2 weeks , better call me immediately for consultation , if not you will lose 2 months at least and over RM50,000 for trial and error .
We are touching this topic specifically due to it's importance to make good wood pellet unless your sawdust is already dried to 15% Moisture Content ( MC ) .
If you have gone through our earlier writings , the cost of drum dryer are significant for a Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant . The High price are due to it's big structure and complication in maintaining stable MC sawdust output . Sawdust comes in various MC from 12% to 60% , therefore it is important to control the MC for optimum pelleting otherwise you would not get high standard wood pellet and high production efficiency .
We will now study a typical drying process base on the following conditions :
1 ) Input Sawdust MC 35%
2 ) Output Sawdust MC 12%
3 ) Drying Rate 2 Ton Per Hour Output
To reduce MC from 35% to 12% you would need to evaporate 20% of water , based on 2,000 kg per hour output , water that need to be removed is 600kg and the input sawdust is 2,600 kg/hr .
To remove 600kg of water you will need 640kw ( 550,000 kCal/hour ) of energy which is equivalent to burning 200kg/hour of wood offcut . In short 100kg/hour need to be combusted to dry 1 TPH ( output ) sawdust . Cost of drying would be about RM5 / ton sawdust if your offcut cost is RM50 / ton .
The Calculation Chart below is from ASPENTECH software and reconfirm by manual calculation which I did not show here due to it's tediousness of calculation , suffice to say the input data , output data and design of the dryer are correct .
Drum Dryer selection are important , many factor affect the cost of the dryer , in this case we believe Drum Dryer Size of Diameter 1.5 meter X Length 9 meter should be enough to dry 2 TPH of sawdust .
Cost of this dryer should be around RM200,000 landed in Malaysia c/w stove , electrical panel and cyclone .
We hope to use this Dryer and the Pellet Mill to make EFB Pellet once we have started Wood Pellet Production probably in August 2011 .
Pellet Mill are the " HEART " for Wood Pellet Production , Very Important . All other equipment are Ancillaries .
Pellet Mill Equipment from China are still at a very infant stage as compared to American or European Pellet Mill , but pricing wise , it is only 1 / 5 the price .
Unless you are going for very high output and have the investment capacity to invest for very long term , China Machines are of better choice .
And even so , you have so many Suppliers , Hundreds maybe , some are Merc , some Toyotas and some Protons , you could guess what I mean , pricing starts from USD20,000 to USD50,000 / unit for a Pellet Mill and Whole Line Plant can range from USD200,000 to USD650,000 for a 2 TPH Line . We have scour many part of China for the right machines .
The lower range will get you to do more maintenance and lower production and the higher range might not be feasible for Malaysia Environment . So , choose wisely .
Due to it's infancy , choosing the right Pellet Mill are important as it have the following problems that need to be address :
1 ) Die Chamber too Hot thus Die will break under stress ( Die cost RM6,000 / unit )
2 ) 24 hours operation not possible
3 ) Standard Die size of 420mm Diameter ( the normal Model SZLH420 MZLH420 ) definitely cannot produce more than 2 TPH per machine , if all conditions are right maybe you would get 1.5 TPH , this is where the learning curve start , how soon can you achieve optimum production , simple calculation , shortage of 0.5 TPH X 2 machine X 16 hour / day X 26 day / month X 3 months X RM100 / ton = RM124,800 in Sales Value , so imagine the savings if it is longer than 3 months . ( Some Manufacturer are claiming above 2 TPH , even 3 TPH )
The Pellet Mill we chose have somehow resolve partially some of the above problems with the right combination of ancillaries equipment . In our opinion it is of reasonable pricing and technically capable to handle over 2 TPH wood pellet production with minimum staffing .
You are invited to visit us once production starts .
The problem above may need another 5 years to solved as the supplier of this machines learn from mistakes and improved on it .
Our target is to invest in reasonably priced machine , high efficiency and low maintenance , so that we can recoup our investment in shortest time possible and have a decent profit to show .
Drum Dryer selection are important , many factor affect the cost of the dryer , in this case we believe Drum Dryer Size of Diameter 1.5 meter X Length 9 meter should be enough to dry 2 TPH of sawdust .
The lower range will get you to do more maintenance and lower production and the higher range might not be feasible for Malaysia Environment . So , choose wisely .
Posts
