The sun died raw material(individual or mixed) free from foreign matter is fed into the hopper of the machine. From the hopper the raw material falls into the crushing area from where it enters into the heating chamber. The heating chamber is controlled thermostatically at a pre set temperature. From the heating chamber the briquette is formed and extruded out.
The briquette is cut into required length and stored, stacked for dispatch or packed in bags for shipment. There is no binder required in the process of this biomass Briquetting. |
First the powder charcoal must be screened to reduce it to a uniform size and remove gross impurities. In case of lump, solid piece are left out in screening, hammer mills are used to again powder them. The screen analysis of the ground charcoal is the coarsest which will give a satisfactory briquette with minimum binder usage.
The ground & screened charcoal powder is next mixed with binder and filler, (if used). If starch is the binder it must first be cooked (gelatinized) with hot water before adding to the mixer. Ribbon type mixer is normal and proper mixing is essential to reduce binder consumption to the minimum.
The mixture then passes to the Briquetting machine screw, ram, or roller type. |
To handle large quantity of biomass distributed in remote location, biomass depot with capacities of 50,000 MT per annum will need to be planned. In India, govt. is considering establishing few large depots to support chain of biomass fired power plants.
In USA, where DOA is planning to use about 200 MT/Annum of biomass in large thermal and power plant installations, pelletising appears to be only solution.Europe has very good demand for biomass pellets to fire its central heating installation. African countries are getting geared to supply for this massive demand from Europe.
In India, to support the proposed 25 million efficient Biomass domestic stoves, palletized biomass fuel appears to be a better option. In USA/Canada/Europe, there is a high possibility of using pellet fired stoves for residential heating.
By 2020 and beyond, densified biomass fuel is going to be key fuel with pellet being the only technology suitable for large scale fuel production. |