Do you want to cut your expenses short and get the warmth of a wood-burning heater without a mess? Then you must be curious to know how to make wood pellets.
Wood pellets are an excellent source of energy that can be used at home for cooking and heating. They provide a great source of warmth and heat. Making your own pellets is an eco-friendly method that offers a renewable, biodegradable fuel source for your stoves and fireplace.
However, a pellet mill machine is recommended to make pellets as it is inexpensive and covers a limited area. Before proceeding to how to make wood pellets, let’s look at what they are and how you can use them.
What are Wood Pellets?
Wood pellets are cylindrical pellets made from waste wood products such as shavings, sawdust, bark, industrial waste, chunks, and slabs.
In recent years, there has been a significant rise in the pellet fuel market.
Wood pellets are an excellent alternative to fossil fuels for home eating, cooking, and industrial applications. They are a renewable source of energy that burns more efficiently than coal and is increasingly being used as a substitute fuel in homes and power plants.
They are also used as a substitute to natural gas and propane around the world, especially in the areas where those fuels are difficult to transport or are expensive. Making your own wood pellets is an excellent way to use unwanted yard waste while starting a lucrative side business.
Pellets involve less water and are solid than logs after the manufacturing process. It ensures that wood pellets emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during combustion than burning logs. In other words, pellets emit less ash and smoke. Also, compared to other fuel options, wood pellets are slightly more expensive than other biofuels.
How to Make Wood Pellets?
To start making wood pellets, you must consider your best choice, a pellet mill or a pellet plant. You should know your target production capacity, application purpose, and budget and have a clear picture in your mind. This will assist you in deciding which pellet is suitable for you. You must construct a pellet plant if your intended capacity exceeds 500kg per hour. A pellet mill is the best option if your intended capacity is only for household use.
Typically, the production processes of pellet mills and pellet production plants differ regarding machinery adjustments, complex machinery to use, and material preparation. Now you know your target, let’s start the process:
1. Gather the Raw Materials
To start the process, you must first gather all the raw materials like sawdust, wood chips, scrap wood, etc. if you are planning to make a small bunch of wood pellets, you will only need 4 to 5 buckets or 8 to 10 logs of sawdust. Now start adding all the material into the pellet mill machine.
Make sure all the raw material is processed in the same manner to have wood pellets with the same water content, fire life, heat output, and ash content. Also, before feeding the raw materials into the pellet mill, ensure the size is no longer than 1 inch or 2.5cm. You can use a press mill to shrink the size to make it smaller.
2. Drying of Raw Materials
Before placing raw materials in the pellet mill machine, they must be dried from any water content or moisture. You can dry them naturally in the sunlight for 24 hours or use drum dryers, also known as flash dryer, that works at high temperatures. They have a tumbler that introduces the raw materials to hot air continuously. Another option is to have a flatbed dryer that operates at a low temperature. In most cases, sawdust does not need to be dried. If your sawdust is stored in a moist climate or feels slightly damp to the touch, you can store them in a dry room for 24 hours to let it dry.
3. Sieving
When making wood pellets, chances are wood particles may contain metal or stones. Therefore, these impurities must be filtered out to ensure the purity of pellets. To extract raw materials of the impurities, larger stones, and other waste materials are removed manually by installing a stone trap. Others, such as ferrous metals, are removed from conveying belt using a magnet.
4. Pelletizing
In this step, pellets are made from the wraw materials with the use of pellet press. The sawdust is fed into high-pressure dies, which structure the material into a recognizable wood pellet structure. The sawdust binds together during this process, and the pellet’s durability, density, and size are determined. The pellet press machine will extrude hot and softwood pellets from the die hole of the pellet mills with immense pressure. This is a critical stage as some appliances necessitate a particular size of wood pellet, so consistency is essential.
5. Cooling
In this step, the structured pellets are passed from the cooling tower to make them more rigid to protect and strengthen them. When the pellets exit the press mills, they are extremely hot, making them fragile. Therefore, the product must be handled delicately as possible till it has cooled and dried. After cooling, the finished moisture level will fall as low as 6%, and then the pellets will be transported to the storage shed via the conveyor belt.
6. Storage
By this step, you are done with pellet making process, and it’s time to store them. After sufficient time has passed in the cooling tower, wood pellets are transported to the storage unit for bagging. You can store them in plastic or paper bags, assuring no moisture or air leaks into the bag. Then keep them away from sunlight in a dry and cool environment.
Final Words
Wood pellets are an excellent fuel source for cooking and getting warmth at a low price. Therefore, if you are planning to save some bucks, skim through this guide to make your pellets with the help of a pellet mill machine. Ensure you are not skipping any steps as they are crucial in determining the final shape, fire strength, and pellet’s durability.
