Importance of Pre-heating in Biomass Briquette Plant

The electrical coil heaters is to preheat feed and die in Biomass Briquette Press. Pre-heating is very important for densifying biomass in screw pressing. It can be divided into two processes: pre-heating for raw material and pre-heating for die. For pre-heating, the electrical coil heaters are neceassary for biomass briquette press.

It has been reported that pre-heating the raw materials can reduce the power required for the biomass briquetting. The pre-heating of raw materials have the advantage of higher quality briquettes for given energy input, lower wear on dies. It is found that the work and pressure of compression or extrusion can be reduced by preheating the raw material to 200-250°C before densification in biomass briquette plant.

There is a report that show papyrus briquettes were produced at pressure between 25-30 MPa with preheat in biomass briquette press. But if they were produced without preheat, it need much bigger pressure of approximately 180 MPa.

When densifying sawdust preheated to a suitable temperature, the process of biomass briquetting could save significant amount of energy. The energy input to the briquetting machine motor, die heaters and the overall system were reduced by 54.0, 30.6 and 40.2% respectively, in case of sawdust preheated to 130°C.

Raising the feed temperature to 80-90 °C before biomass briquetting increases screw life of biomass briquette press to 44 hours from 17 hours without pre-heating. The production rate of biomass briquette press was found to increase from 340 to 360 kg/hr and the power consumption was reduced by 15-20 percent.

Back to Biomass Briquette Press