Pellet mill attachment

[BXRICK]

A friend of mine designed, built, and owns two very large wood pellet plants on the east coast. He sells them as "New England Wood Pellets".
New England Wood Pellet - Home Page

Anyway, here's the non-secrets I know:
- A hammermill is a requirement, as is equipment to remove non-wood to help protect the press.
- The sawdust has to be REALLY dry before you start. It takes a lot of heat. A kiln-dried 2x4 is not good enough.
- Moisture (this is a trade secret, and I'm actually not sure what he uses right now and exacty how it's done) is then added back in right before pressing.
- Anyone can press a pellet with any wood. What matters is how much burnable wood you get into the pellet.

Basically, you take essentially all the moisture out, and then add a very little
back - just enough to get a bind. Any more, and you hurt the efficiency of the pellet (it contains more water and therefore fewer BTUs than necessary).

It's definitely a case where economy of scale works out.

 

[RonMar]

I'm curious as well.

That was what I asked for when I asked for prices from him, so I am assuming that is what I got, but I will confirm that.

 

[RonMar]

Well that was not the delivered price. If both the hammermill and the pellett mill without motor/shafting were ordered together, it would be roughly another $200 shipping and $600 in broker fees to get them onto the back of my truck...

 

[Bill Barrett]

I was just at a energy fair in Custer Wi., Got to see a pellet mill up close looked like the one in this thread. If any of you are machining savy, dies and rollers would be a piece of cake.
Edit; just looked at the link again, 259.00 for replacment dies isn't bad. Still would be fun to make them.

 

[charlz]

I was just at a energy fair in Custer Wi., Got to see a pellet mill up close looked like the one in this thread. If any of you are machining savy, dies and rollers would be a piece of cake.
Edit; just looked at the link again, 259.00 for replacment dies isn't bad. Still would be fun to make them.

Did you get to see it in action?

 

[Bill Barrett]

Did you get to see it in action?

No darn-it, the guy selling them wasn't even there. He had a pad to fill in name and address for more info.

 

[PoppaRex]

looks like this thread has somewhat died, so i'd like to revive it.

I've been thinking about this over the past year or two. Just bought a small tractor MF GC2310 (23 hp) and so i am now rethinking this with a little more seriousness.

So just some thoughts on the subject...

Has anyone made any progress?

Do the prices requested seem a bit high?

Can I build one?

Seems like the press and die are the key componant. Other than that you need the pto shaft and gear box. Is there any existing implement that delivers the gear ratio required to power a pellet mill? Can i cannibalize something to get what i need?

I saw some vague questions regarding moisture content. What i have found is that most sites reference a pre-pelleting content of 12 - 18% with a finished moisture <8%. SOme commercial places use the waste dust to generate heat for the dryers.

Also there was a comment about not pelleting durring the winter as it's too wet. I'd think the opposite. The air is much dryer in winter than spring. The difficulty is bringing the temperature up to drying temp, no?

I am looking at using miscanthus x Giganteus (Elephant grass) as my source. Trials in europe get up to 18 metric tones per acre. More if there was a method to keeing the leaves on. The leaves fall off leaving a bamboo-like cane up to 12 feet tall. I finally located a source and purchanges 4 plants. I'll see what the growth rate is truely like. Additionally, i am considering leaf waste from fall collections. Infrastrutire is already in place with town leaf collection sites. I am gussing that using such material as the source would eliminate the need for a hammermill and i might get away with a series of weed whackers in a tube design.

Have fun!
Poppa

 

[SFish]

Where I used to live (WV) it is wet in the summer and dry in the winter. Where I live now (CA) it is wet in the winter and dry in the summer. Steve

 

[PoppaRex]

Steve, we could make pellets there in the summer and here in the winter!

NOTE: After additional searching, i also find references to pre-pelleting moisture content needing to be in the 8 - 12% range. Must have to do with the particular type of material being used.

 

[Darren]

There's a commercial pellet plant in this county. One of the issues other than density is the quality of the saw dust. The plant buys hardwood saw dust by the tractor trailer load. They won't buy any saw dust that has pieces of bark. The saw dust must come from a mill that debarks the logs first.