Developing Equipment Process for Economical Production of Biomass Solid Fuel

摘要

Biomass fuel is renewable and environment friendly. However, most biomass raw materials have a low energy density, which results in higher costs for storage and transportation. Pelletizing biomass has been used commercially as a way to densify materials to make solid fuel. The major problem for this process is cost. The cost includes collecting, preparing (grinding, drying, etc.), and manufacturing the raw materials into a solid fuel form for storage and transportation. This paper presents research and development results in developing high pressure compaction processes and specialized equipment for densification and agglomeration of biomass materials to make solid fuel, using wood processing or farm wastes, chicken litter, and similar biomass materials. Compaction and pelletization processes will be compared for their advantages and weakness. It is shown that a specially designed compaction machine can reduce the manufacturing cost of biomass fuel so that the cost is almost competitive with coal on BTU per dollar basis. Prototyping of this machine and production test is under way.