Showing posts with label Malaysia Biomass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malaysia Biomass. Show all posts

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 !!!



Malaysia Biomass & Calorific Value

Choose Biomass that is low in $ / kCal instead of $ / kg .
Malaysia Biomass

Malaysia Biomass . Biomass Calorific Value are very important in the selection of fuel for combustion and gasification . This is due to Energy content per kg of biomass . You can have very cheap biomass such as EFB but due to it's Moisture Content of 65% and so Calorific Value will be low at 1,400 kCal / kg . Moreover during combustion , silica ash will scale the tube causing reduction in efficiency of boiler and fly ash is a concern with Environment Authority .

Typically there are plenty of biomass materials in Malaysia which are able to be used to replace fossil fuel . Malaysia Biomass material available are as follows :

Material Calorific Value Moisture Content
1 ) Woodchip 3,500 Kcal / kg 25 %
2 ) Sawdust 3,500 Kcal / kg 25 %
3 ) Empty Fruit Bunch 1,400 Kcal / kg 65 %
4 ) Rice Husk 3,000 Kcal / kg 10 %

The above Malaysia Biomass is among the lowest in $ / kCal ( high in energy density per RM ) and available in abundance in Malaysia .

I did not include wood pellet as it is to my knowledge still not available in Malaysia ( I would like to know who have it ? ) . This biomass will be in the future replace wood chip due to very standardise size and quality of heat output .
The above mentioned biomass are which I will elaborate more due to current available technology for full combustion which will emit no smoke . These is done by converting the said biomass to syngas .

The problem for these change over to biomass thermal application is the lack of suitable biomass material , inconsistent quality supply of biomass , system for combustion , high delivery cost , long perceived thinking that biomass emits heavy smoke , storage problem for user and etc .

For the record , the favourite , Diesel ( Calorific Value - 8,770 Kcal / liter ) was the thermal fuel in Malaysia which is widely available and cheap for the last decades . As it is now a heavy burden to many industries , it is time to change to biomass not only that it is green , it will also enable industries to save on high fuel cost .
Here I will go into details for Wood Chip as the preferred biomass due to reason i will mention below .

Wood Chip

is a product derived from sawmill waste . Quite recently in the last 1 year or so , plenty of wood chip production come on stream due to demand from MDF and Particle Board Manufacturer . But now due to it's limited supply , price have moved up and stablilised at around RM150 / ton to RM200 / ton depending on delivery cost . I am suggesting this biomass material ( Wood Chip Only ) to be used as fuel for gasifier due to
a ) year round availablity
b ) easy delivery
c ) lower cost of transportation
d ) ease of handling
e ) lesser contamination at user factory
and etc .

At the price given it will work out to RM0.061 per mmCalorie ( RM15.47 / mmBTU ) compared to diesel when price is RM3.20 / liter at RM0.354 per mmCalorie ( RM89.18 / mmBTU ) . From this comparison you can see that wood chip is only 17 % of diesel .
WOW , did anyone realise this ???
Yes , I did claim that there is 70 % savings only for change over to gasifier , this is due to some loss of heat during gasification process , in some unefficient gasifier you might get even lower savings in the range of 50 % to 60 % only .

The reason I did not elaborate on EFB ( Empty Fruit Bunch ) eventhough it is cheap is because it need to be further process and the calorific value is very low . Another reason is that my proposed gasifier system might not be able to take these fuel or I would rather say efficiency will be very low . There is Ah Niau and Ah Kau that would say , what savings of 70% , mine can do at least 90 % savings with EFB as it is cheap , HAHAHAHHAHAH , BE CAREFUL .

But I promise you if you can wait a few years ( or your factory can wait for a few years ) I will try to bring 90 % to you . These is when Oil at USD200 per barrel and EFB can be use .

So the saying goes like this , YOU GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR !!!

ACT NOW !!! AND GET BACK YOUR INVESTMENT WITHIN 1 YEAR ..........

The next blog will be on choosing the right gasifier . Am I up to it ???

Bye for now .