Energy efficient pilot-scale production of wood fuel pellets made from a raw material mix including sawdust and rapeseed cake

Presently, most fuel pellets are made from sawdust or shavings. In Sweden, these materials are used to the maximum extent. As the demand for pellets increases, the supply of sawdust will be insufficient and other raw materials or mixes of raw materials will be used. This work investigates sawdust mixed with rapeseed cake. The latter is a residual product from the production of chemically unmodified oil refined from cold-pressed rape oil. At the Department of Energy, Environmental and Building Technology at Karlstad University, Sweden, a complete pilot-scale pellet production unit is located. The pellets are produced and tested for mechanical durability, length, bulk density and moisture content according to the Swedish Standard for pellets. During production, the load current, the die pressure and the die temperature were measured along with other parameters. The main purpose was to examine how the mixture of rapeseed cake and pine sawdust affected the energy consumption of the pelletising machine and mechanical durability of mixed fuel pellets. The results show that the energy consumption decreased and the amount of fines increased with increasing rapeseed cake in the wood fuel pellets. These results indicate that we must compromise between a decrease in the use of energy and a decrease in durability.