What is biomass energy?
Biomass energy originates from plants and plant-derived materials. It is an organic matter and is used to generate energy in many forms. Biomass can refer to any plant materials such as wood and leaves. Even the animal dung that is used to light fire and utilized in cooking comes under the category of biomass.
What is pellet biomass?
As mentioned before, biomass energy comes from plant residues and animal waste. However, when this organic matter like wood, sawdust, and other plant residues are condensed into energy-dense pellets, they can be used for renewable bioenergy generation at a tremendous scale.
Advantages & uses of biomass pellets:
The energy density of biomass in the form of wood pellet or sawdust pellet make is highly beneficial for many industries. The amount of energy stored in a biomass wood pellet is highly powerful.
On their own, the residues and materials like sawdust and wood are not that powerful to provide high energy density. For instance, one kilogram of wood has little energy as compared to coal, uranium, and diesel.
Biomass wood pellets are used tremendously across many industries. Biomass pellet mills are used to produce energy-dense pellets for heating and cooking. It transforms raw materials such as wood, sawdust, pine, bamboo, and other biomass materials into high-density energy carriers.
Wood pellets are an excellent alternative to firewood, charcoal, oil, and gas and are used in cooking, heating, boilers, and even in power plants.
Animal beddings like horse stalls are also made from wood pellets.
How are wood pellets made? Takeaway:
Biomass pellets come from different wood sources such as sawdust, shavings, and other wood residues. Freshly cut timber is also a good source of biomass pellets. These materials are subjected to very high temperatures in a biomass wood pellet mill that dries up the materials and converts them into pelletizer. The final product that comes from a pellet mill is uniform and is up to 6mm in diameter. This size is ideal and can easily be handled and stored.
·Pellet stoves:
Other than sawdust pellet mills, simple pellet stoves can also be used to burn wood pellets in a pellet stove. These stoves are energy efficient and are easy to use and easier to install.
·Pellet mills:
Biomass pellets mills are one of the popular ways of making wood pellets. There are various types of biomass pellet mills on the market according to quality and production capacity. A home use wood pellet mill can also be beneficial for small-scale use.
Takeaway:
Pellets are made from compressed organic matter that includes food waste, energy crops, agricultural residues, and virgin lumber. The most commonly used pellets are wood pellets. They are made from sawdust in wood pellet mills. Other sources of pellets are fruit branches, coconut shells, and treetops. They are extensively used for power generation, heating and cooking. Pellets are highly dense and are manufactured with low moisture content. Thus, they have a high combustion efficiency.