PELLETING DIFFICULTIES

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 .

Drying Cost

Pellet Burner

Now let us go into the details of drying .

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 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 

EFB PELLET

EFB Pelleting

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 .

QC and R & D

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 . 

WHO YOU GONNA CALL !!!

WOOD PELLET FOR SALE

We now offer wood pellet for sale in the local market .

Price delivered Klang Valley at RM300 / MT in Bulk Bag .

Below are the test certificate and photo of wood pellet .

Call me at 012 9887 118 Lee Seng Ann .

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 !!!

Wood Pellet Burner

Wood Pellet Burner / EFB Pellet Burner

Availability of wood pellet in the Malaysia Market have enable the introduction of Wood Pellet Burner .

Wood Pellet Burner can be categorised into small home use type ( typically below 100kw ) or big unit for replacing diesel / gas burner for industrial use ( from 300kw to 2,500kw )

Small Wood Pellet Burner

With consumption of over 10 million ton wood pellet in 2010 , Europe is the biggest market of wood pellet . Usage of wood pellet burner to replace fuel oil / diesel / gas burner have been taking place for the last 10 years or more . Therefore wood pellet burner produced are very technologically advance .

The burner have characteristic as follows :

1 ) Fully automated - even with modulated firing

2 ) lambda sensor - oxygen sensor in the flue gas , to adjust air input for efficient combustion

3 ) > 90% efficiency - very close to diesel / gas burner fuel to heat conversion

4 ) Automatic Dust cleaning mechanism

5 ) automatic ignition , sleep mode , timer , remote control , mobile phone control , etc

6 ) easy conversion from oil burner to wood pellet burner without modification

Changeover from Diesel Burner to Wood Pellet Burner

Industrial Wood Pellet / EFB Pellet Burner

We will be launching this Burner in a month or two which have the following specification :

1 ) Replacement of diesel burner with capacity of 300kw ( 250,000 kCal/hr ) to 2,500kw ( 2 Million kCal / hr ) . This is similar to diesel burner firing into a 0.5 ton per hour to 4 ton per hour steam boiler .

2 ) Control is by pressure sensor similar to diesel burner automatic firing although modulation firing are not available currently .

3 ) Savings in fuel consumption are from RM37/hour for 300kw unit and RM298 / hour for 2,500kw unit .

Cost of the Burner from RM40,000 to RM120,000 . Payback in 6 months for the small unit and 4 months for the big unit . Gasifier of similar capacity cost 4 to 10 times more .

Wood Pellet Burner - 200MW / 180,000 Kcal / hour

THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASON WE HAVE BEEN HOLDING BACK ON OUR GASIFIER PROMOTION FOR THERMAL APPLICATION .

By far and large , wood pellet due to it's size consistency , high and consistent calorific value , availability , stable price & eco friendly fuel are very suitable for the replacement of diesel or gas .

START helping the environment to reduce emission of CO2 ,

DO YOUR PART .

Pellet Mill

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 .