Wood Pellet Plant Design Introduction
When we talk about wood pellet plant design, many people may think it is about the decoration, such as the facade of the factory, the color, the layout, and so on. In fact, the wood pellet plant design is the most important pre-step to set up a wood pellet plant. It is the reflection of the pellet plant capacity, pellet plant materials, and the wood pellet market you supply.
Everyone has the scary experience of watching a horror movie, if you underestimate the importance of the wood pellet plant design, it is even more horrible than you thought. If you are an investor who has plenty of money, the design of wood pellet plant may be easy to choose, but if you are an investor looks for the most cost effective solutions for your pellet plant, the wood pellet plant design is the top priority consideration before you start the project. The wood pellet plant design is determined by the type of pellet mills and other equipment you need, which definitely defines the capital input of your pellet plant. A low sufficient pellet plant design will cause many problems, such as: capital waste, high maintenance costs, more important, it may be a potential danger for your staff. Therefore, to design the pellet plant based on your own situation is important for most of the wood pellet manufacturers.
The Features That Impact the Design of Wood Pellet Plant
Before designing the wood pellet plant, there are some questions you should ask:
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What feedstock do you use?
The feedstock is an important factor which impacts the equipments you may need in your pellet plant.
Basically, depend on the different types of raw materials, there are two kinds of wood pellet plant, the green pellet plant and the dry pellet plant. The green pellet plant processes the raw materials with a moisture that is higher than 15%, which indicates that a drying process before the pelleting is necessary. When you choose this type of pellet plant, the moisture of your feedstock can be as high as 50%, it may help enlarge the raw material range for the pellet plant and lower the price of the feedstock. On the contrary, the dry pellet plant is a facility that received the raw materials with a moisture lower than 15%, which means that no initial drying process is required, so you can save the capital input. In that case, the moisture of the feedstock must be strictly kept under 15%. When this type of pellet plant is under your consideration, your initial capital input may be reduced, but the price of the feedstock and the material storage system is increased.
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What capacity do you want?
The capacity is the factor that impact the type of pellet mills you need.
Pelleting is the core part of a wood pellet plant. Normally, there are two types of pellet mills in consideration, the flat die pellet mill and the ring die pellet mill. The capacity of a flat die pellet mill is no more than 1 ton\h, so it is mainly used for home, small workshop, farm, lab and so on. Oppositely, the ring die pellet mill is mainly served the commercial and industrial scale business with a capacity above 1 ton/h, and if you pursue a higher capacity, just use several ring die pellet mill at the same time together. To identify the most efficient combination of pellet mills in the pellet plant is the fundamental step of the pellet plant design.
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Which market do you supply, residential or industrial ?
The market you supply is the factor that impact the type of package system of the wood pellet plant.
From the question you can find out that there are two kinds of market , the residential market and industrial market. These two different markets require different package systems. The residential market mainly serves the individual users, who need the wood pellet as a fuel to heat their house during the heating season. In this case, the pellet plants mostly adopt the commercial packing system, about 15kg per bag. But if your customers are middle or large scale users, such as: schools, hospitals, power stations, or you want to be a pellet exporter, then the bulk packing system with a 1-ton per bag package is the top choice for you.
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Where is your pellet plant site?
Last but not the least, the pellet plant site is a tough and important choice for every pellet investor. It is a factor which impacts and be limited by the capital fund, the overall factory layout, the feedstock and etc.
The ideal pellet plant site is a place located at the suburban area with a reasonable price, a nearby feedstock resource and a convenient highway to transport the products. In reality, there may need some compromises, which makes the pellet plant design more important for the wood pellet manufacturers.
