One of the plant we sold have a more advance furnace which reduce manpower and also ease of operation .
As pelleting need very accurate moisture content , the Hot Gas Generator help tremendously especially for big scale operation and also for less experience operator .
The Moisture Content of dust was constantly within ± 1% MC after exiting the dryer . This eliminates one of the most important varible in pelleting , in my previous post I mentioned that MC consistency are very important for good pelleting .
To explain a bit why the Hot Gas Generator helps a lot and normal furnace have it's pertinent issues . Normal furnace feeding of fuel is by hand , worker tend to overfeed the furnace which have small grate , by doing so the worker will have longer time to sit , by doing so too the temperature of the furnace will fluctuate through very wide range which cause drying inconsistency . Hot Gas Generator feed fuel automatically at set parameter and flame in furnace can be control by fan , this will give consistent flame in furnace continuously thus consistent Moisture Content of the sawdust output from dryer .
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 .
At last we have arrive at the Ultimate Pellet Burner with European Standard Capability .
When we say European Standard , we mean it , in terms of many facet . It run 24/7 , for many weeks without intervention , just fill up tank , set correct temperature , light up , walaaaaaa . No hassle , no worker ( " go to sleep if you like " ) , consistent heat output , no smoke , no cleaning and many many more .
BUT MOST IMPORTANT , PLENTY OF SAVINGS .
BSR500
This picture shows a flame of 8 feet height and 4 feet length . The power of this Burner is 500,000 KCal / hour .
BSR500 Burner features :
1 ) Multi Pellet Fuel
2 ) Automatic Function just like Diesel or Gas Burner
3 ) Fuel savings of over 50% compared to Diesel or Gas
4 ) Over 80% Efficiency of energy conversion from Pellet to Heat
5 ) Robustly Build with minimum maintenance ( no burning chamber to repair )
6 ) No operator needed , just fill the tank and run
7 ) Quick startup time of less than 5 minute to peak capacity
8 ) Size can be made to order depending on your furnace , minimal modification needed
9 ) High power fuel use lesser storage space , Only option for SME with small factory space
10 ) Very Very clean , no smoke , no pollution
and many many more reason for you to change to RENEWABLE ENERGY
If you are doubtful about this burner and supply of pellet fuel , we can supply the burner with fuel and charge based on your usage or fixed monthly rate , we guarantee savings before taking up the replacement of your current burning method .
Currently we have a unit running in Kelantan , firing into furnace . The heat are used to dry sawdust in a drum dryer at rate of 2 ton per hour output . Previously the furnace use wood offcut to the tune of 4 ton per shift of 8 hours , currently with the new burner , the furnace consume wood pellet of less than 1 ton / shift .
Some pictures of the Burner in position firing into the furnace .
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 .
Combustion is said to be STOICHIOMETRY when fuel and air are in perfect balance . Sounds too technical !!
In layman terms :
Stoichiometry = Perfect Combustion
i.e. Highest Heat Power output at the lowest fuel consumption .
The above graph can be easily explain as follows :
EXCESS FUEL - A lorry laden with overweight goods climbing steep hill , the driver hits the accelerator full throttle but there was no extra power only more black smoke , in such circumstances more diesel escape without full combustion in the engine thus EXCESS FUEL but no extra power . While
EXCESS AIR - In a furnace , say you need 6kg of air to fully combust 1kg of fuel ( normally biomass ) , but you input more air which is at ambient temperature of 30°C while the furnace temperature was 700°C , by channelling too much cold air into the furnace , temperature will drop and thus loss of heat energy .
Please note the grey highlight " Highest efficiency " , the graph show that it is not possible to have perfect combustion ( stoichiometry ) but always burner are design with certain % of excess air , normally 10 to 15% more air to ensure full combustion .
To achieve this , Burner design are critically important . Design of burner take into account factor as follows :
1 ) timing and quantity of fuel feeding
2 ) volume of air corresponding to fuel input
3 ) robustness of burner to ensure low maintenance
4 ) automatic control to achieve highest efficiencies
5 ) safety features of the burner
6 ) simple design but high efficiency
7 ) user friendly
Penny Wise Pound Foolish
Many executives of companies do not understand this and only think of cheap material to burn in their boiler but in fact not always cheapest biomass wins hands down . Then you got to know the calorific value of the cheap biomass and also the efficiency of burning this cheap biomass . More often than not cheap biomass are very low in calorific value of not more than 2,500 kcal / kg and due to the fluctuation of the Calorific Value it is not possible to have high efficiency during combustion .
I always say this , the boiler man being normal layman will open exhaust valve fully to let more air in so no black smoke in the chimney but by doing so Excess Air will drop the efficiency to below 50% . This means instead of having good burner with efficiency over 80% there will be loss of 30% in combustion efficiency .
So the combination of Biomass Calorific Value and Combustion Efficiency might overwhelm even the cheapest biomass in terms of dollar and cents .
I hope the above will enlighten misconception on pricey biomass .
We have started manufacturing a few weeks ago and everything is going fine with small adjustment here and there . The longer than expected delay are due to testing of various materials available to us like sawdust , wood shavings and rice husk .
During testing , we encounter very big problem with local pelletising materials which we have solved . This have cost us 2 weeks delays and substantial losses . It is a journey to get the correct mix for most optimum production efficiency and yield . There is a saying ' FAILURE IS A FAR GREATER TEACHER THAN SUCCESS '
Production are now ramming up to about 1.2 ton per hour ( TPH ) per unit of Pellet Mill Model SZLH420 which is quite efficient since the supplier only promised us 1 TPH . Operation time for the machine is now 10 hours / day .
If everything is fine we will be trying to get 1.5 TPH in another month or so with 12 hours operation / day giving a total of 36 ton per day volume if raw material is available .
VIDEO - WOOD PELLET PRODUCTION
We are marketing this 2 TPH Full Production Line at RM850,000 with spare parts . Local fabrication and civil work will cost another RM150,000 or so depending on setup . We throw in service and technical advise which is the Most Important part in the setting up of wood pellet plant . Otherwise new player will have big headache in achieving optimum production within a short time .
If you notice in the video , the Plant we have are quite clean in terms of dust control even with all the machineries in operation . Some of the plant setup do not cater for dust control and in the long term it will become health hazard and difficult to maintain staff .
Costing
With this setup , we manage to bring down the total number of worker to only 8 including 2 Supervisor per shift without stoppage during tea time break and also lunch break . This is a huge savings on manpower and also during this difficulty time of getting worker . With time and additional accessories we would be able to cut another 2 worker per shift in a few months time .
Electricity consumption for the whole plant , at below 300 Ampere consumption is 125kWh of electricity which comes to RM45 / hour for a 2 TPH production . Cost of production per ton will be RM22.50 .
To achieve 1.5 TPH High Quality Wood Pellet consistently , a few problem need to be solve :
1 ) consistently stable moisture content of sawdust
2 ) particle size of sawdust
3 ) good pellet mill and accessories with proper maintenance
4 ) properly design full production line for efficient production
5 ) correct mix of tropical sawdust / rubberwood sawdust
Quality
Quality wise it is above expectation . The Certificate of Test shows that ash is below 1% and Pellet Unit Density is at 1.2 ton / m3 .
This specification is upto Germany DIN Plus Standard on Size , Unit Density , Moisture Content and Ash Content .
Like I said previously , investor need to see for themselves if it is true that the pellet mill can produce 1.2 TPH consistently and operate over long hours without stoppage .
Come visit us to see for yourself .
But no Video & Photos Allowed ( company policy ) .
I received many enquiries from potential investor on setting up wood pellet or EFB pellet Plant .
Most of the questions asked are as follows :
1 ) Price of Pellet Production Line
2 ) Capacity per Hour per Pellet Mill
3 ) I want to visit your factory in production
We are more than glad to received any visitors and offer quotation for our pellet line .
In my opinion , what potential investors should have asked are :
1 ) Effciency of the Pellet Production Line
2 ) Maintenance of the machineries especially the pellet mill
3 ) Return on Investment ( ROI )
Efficiency
We claim that our pellet mill and the whole line can produce > 1 TPH for a pellet mill with 420 internal diameter die , CONSISTENTLY over prolong period of production time . I believe not many can claim this !!!
You can buy Pellet Mill from so many supplier from China are reasonable price , most can produce 1 TPH consistently but not over prolong period of time .
Pellet Mill from China are still in infant stage as the same pellet mill are for feed production . Therefore it is not as robust as machines from USA or Europe which price are at least double .
Efficiency are very important in Pellet Production as the capacity are very small i.e. 1 TPH per machine , you need to be efficient to make profit . If your machine can only run 8 hours per day but others can operate 15 hours per day , others will make double your profit .
In short pellet manufacturing is a race against time .
Maintenance
Many stories from friends regarding their pellet mill performance .
Die cracking , roller bearing need constant change , pellet refused to come out , need additives for smooth production and etc .
1 piece of Die cost RM5,000 , should last 500 ton production , if the die crack by 250 ton , then your cost will go up to RM20 per ton instead of RM10 per ton . Not mentioning down time and failure to deliver to customer will cost you more .
Return on Investment
I am not sure how many of the potential investor have data on the profitability of wood pellet manufacturing . But I believe most do not have complete and accurate data and depends on the fact that they want to go into this business as there is so many enquiries for this product .
This business are definitely lucrative as of now if you have this advantages :
1 ) ample supply of raw material
2 ) good wood pellet production line
A friend of mine once said if you get the correct combination of raw material , machines and customer , you are simply printing money every second .
Conservatively , Our Wood Pellet Line should have payback within 2 year and ROI of over 6% per month .
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 .
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 ,
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 .
As promised , today I will be writing about Densification of Wood Biomass to make Wood Pellet .
Wood Pellet can be made of wood sawdust , wood shavings , timber offcut and woodchip .
The purpose of Densification are as follows :-
1 ) common size - enabling automation ( automatic feeding and burning just like diesel/gas burner with high efficiency )
2 ) high calorific value - optimum combustion efficiency ( 90% efficiency is possible )
3 ) high density - lower transportation and storage cost
To achieve the above purpose , Feed Mill Machines have been turn to make wood pellet with some modification as wood have higher density and more difficult to be pelletised compared to animal feed .
Unless you are setting up large size Pellet Mill Plant of 20 TPH , small machineries from China would be more suitable due to their much more lower cost .
From our studies of wood pellet processing , optimum size of operation should be of 2 TPH to 5 TPH due to the availability of raw material , operation cost , profit margin and marketing .
Let's take a closer look at a 2 TPH Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant .
It will include sectional processing as follows :
1 ) Material Processing - Hammermill , Screener - RM75,000
All the Segment above can be connected with belt conveyors , screw conveyors or bucket elavator to make it fully automated with only 5 workers during operation . Additional cost for this could be around RM150,000 .
Electrical , Local Fabrication , Installation Cost , Training will cost another RM120,000 .
Provision for 6 months Spare Parts and Miscellanous will cost RM50,000 .
The above is indicative cost of setting up a Whole Line Wood Pellet Plant based on 2 TPH production .
You could refer to the side bar and the bottom for some pictures of the above machineries .
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 .
This is a new industry in Malaysia with only a few small plant of 1 ton per hour ( TPH ) production .
We are putting up a 2 TPH Whole Line Wood Pellet Mill Plant operational in April 2011 .
Write us if you need Wood Pellet or want to set up a Wood Pellet Plant .
The chart shows normal Biomass Calorific Value with various Moisture Content .
These means the higher the Moisture Content ( water in the Biomass ) the lower the Calorific Value of the biomass because when you burn biomass you will need to heat the biomass to above 250 ºC . before you reach this temperature , during combustion water need to evaporate at 100 ºC , the more water you have in the biomass the more energy you need to spent to evaporate the water thus the lower Calorific Value if the MC of the biomass is high .
It means , you are buying WATER not ENERGY !!!
Many articles have put Wood Pellet Calorific Value at 4,200 kCal/kg with bulk density of 600 kg/m3 thus making it more viable to be transported over long distance as compared to woodchip at 300 kg/m3 and sawdust at 200kg/m3 .
Furthermore Wood Pellet are dry at below 10% MC thus giving it a high ratio of enegy / volume .
From the table , Wood Pellet are reasonably priced in relation to it's energy value . The high cost per ton are due to processing cost needed for densification and drying .
As Wood Pellet are of constant size it usage can be easily automated just like gas or diesel burner . And the beauty is you can achieve over 90% combustion efficiency just like gas / diesel burner as compared to normal burning in furnace which efficiency are low at below 80% combustion efficiency . It is very technical !
In fact , most European Countries and now Korea , combustion now have shift to Wood Pellet from gas or diesel due to it's availability , environmental concern and government tax on fossil fuel .
Lately there is this hot topic of turning EFB to EFB Pellet . It would be great if it is suitable and there is market for it .
We are working on launching Wood Pellet Burner in a few months time together with our Wood Pellet .
It have been 3 months since the last posting and oil have peak at USD147 per barrel and now hovering around USD40 per barrel . What happen to the prediction that it could fly to USD200 , who knows ? Today I got to take out the main picture of " Yep's It's gonna hurt " for now until the time comes by again . Many prediction have been made on oil with most of the consumption of world oil being as per chart below :
Part of the prediction in the chart is true but due to US recession occuring now demand for oil have drop thus bringing down the price of oil .
The low oil price is not good in a sense that companies will curtail the spending on R & D to find source of renewable energy therefore slowing down the efforts of reducing the effect of Global Warming .
I remember being to a few companies which are heavy user of diesel fuel for heating purposes and gather that when Nymex oil future were above USD100 per barrel all are gearing up to change to biomass due to its lower price and insignificant fluctuation in prices . I would guess as of now none is intending to do so as price of diesel have drop back to RM1.50 per liter for industrial usage .
When will this industrialist change their mind set as oil will not continue to be low and continous burning of fossil fuel is not helping the humane cause of reducing global warming .
In short , Malaysians are not only short sighted but reluctant to move out of their comfort zone as compared to Europeans which have been changing to wood pellet heating instead of gas for the last 10 years or so .
The encouraging change over to biomass heating in house hold in Europe are due to a few factor list as below :
1 ) high government tax on fossil fuel , noticeably Europe Gas Price is over double the Rest of The World, click Link : " Gas Prices Around The World " on the sidebar
2 ) availability of convenient automated heating stove and proper fuel in wood pellet
3 ) the caring way of Europeans which are moving to complying to KYOTO PROTOCOL even though price of wood pellet are just a fraction cheaper than Heating Fuel
None of the above factor exist in Malaysia ( or even outside Europe ) thus making it difficult to convince consumer to change over to biomass for heat and power .
Malaysia Government are at least now holding the price of Industrial Diesel at RM1.50 per liter to encourage industrialist to find ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption although Nymex oil at USD40 per barrel would translate to RM1.10 per liter . These is an encouraging effort by the Government which should be applauded .
The government should do more by using the tax collected on the diesel by giving grant to companies which change from fossil fuel to biomass . These is widely practice in Europe and even Japan to encourage usage of biomass .
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 .
The low oil price is not good in a sense that companies will curtail the spending on R & D to find source of renewable energy therefore slowing down the efforts of reducing the effect of Global Warming . 
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