I wonder if you can mix charcoal and sawdust using the moisture in the sawdust as a binder. I also wonder what the risk of fire in these is? Just thinking pressure could lead to heat.
The down side I see to pellets is you are using energy to make fuel. I guess if you came use a waste product as fuel and it gives you more miles per tank you do get a good return on you extra input energy but the wood chunk gasificer would have a smaller carbon footprint if that maters to you.
I have been planning to play with a ramrod type pellet mill. There are a lot of videoās on youtube of briquette mills working that way, and I was going to use a small engine crank to build a pellet sized one. They depend on the buildup of friction heat to soften the lignin in the sawdust to bind the pellets. My plan was to power it with a small gas engine (wood powered of course) and direct the exhaust heat onto the compressing chamber to help heat it.
I canāt recall where I saw this but the comment was that if you shut down early with a good deal of pellets still in the hopper, the left over moisture in the system will make the pellets soggy or disintegrate. I have no pellet burning experience so I canāt verify this claim.
Hi Dan,
1:Yes the carbon powder can be mixed with sawdust to make pellets., no risk of fire, but the die plate can run glowing hot if you are not carefull ballanced with input to output
2: Making pellets is expensiveā¦ and energy consuming.
3: Have developed and build briquetting equipment and pelletizers in my past, even have some installed in the USA and Canadaā¦ ( will search some info to post )
4: Where as normal wood to charcoal reduces its volume in the process, pellets and briquettes behave the opposite, youāl have to carefully adjust the design for itā¦
I think the reciprocating press is just called a mechanical pellet/briquette press.
I have never made pellets from raw materials, but we make large charcoal briquettes as a part of our sanitation system in Rwanda. We make charcoal from crop waste, pasteurize solid waste with the excess pyrolysis heat then use this safe humanure as a binder. Below is a link to see the press I built. I havenāt yet tried grinding briquettes for use in a gasifier. BTW, solid waste is energy dense so it burns well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ngSz3Rqg8
I have heard of people burning dried buffalo chips for fuel, but compressing it into briquettes sounds even better. Lot of people around here have horses and will give away manure by the truckload. already mixed with a bit of straw. Iām getting ideaās.
Hey Andy, Looks like your video shows another use for an old square baler!
Great demonstration. For a more efficient pressing action I would suggest something like the CINVA ram.
I donāt know if the ram press work very well for pellets. you arenāt getting an even pressure out all the holes, and it isnāt a consistent pressure. With briquettes it isnāt quite as important because the material can shift around a bit.
a screw press like a sausage grinder -might- be easier to build.
Yes, I meant specifically for the briquettes. The action would be much quicker and amenable to sliding hopper loading, and probably compress harder if needed. I also agree that a sausage grinder type of extruder might work, but the pressure might have to be very high, or plasticizing/ binder agents used.
Would be worth a try. Especially for the briquette material or other biomass like certain manures. The old style dog food extruded pellet equipment should be about perfect.
When propane neared $5 a gallon a few years back, Ed put an upsized TLUD in his window glass shop for heat. Same operating principles as this instructables of the month http://www.instructables.com/id/Durable-Biochar-Producing-TLUD-Camp-Stove/
Fuel for the heater is hardwood pellets, about $200 per ton. No brainer v $5 per gallon propane. The āresidueā from heating the glass shop a few months with a TLUD was a couple 55 gallon barrels of pelletized charcoal.
Yes indeed, charcoal from hardwood pellets created in a TLUD is a beautiful fuel. We first built a Gary Gilmore simple-fire for home generator. This is just as simple as it looks and one-pull starts are fairly common.
Then we used charcoal power on a 1947 Case tractor powering a chunker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMxtBDYXiik
Ed even ran his Toyota pu on charcoal for a while. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3NZynm6l7g
One take away is that only a tiny amount of ash residue remains after gasifying TLUD produced charcoal pellets for engine fuel.
Our next step is to make a āsprout chunkerā to turn brush and twigs into heating fuel to remove dependence on pellets - and clean up around the farm.
And BTW, the TLUDās made out of thin metal last for years if you keep them out of the weather. Have yet to wear one out that was running normally. Have burned a couple out quickly when reaching for forge temps on natural draft ;~)
This is about the best hand operated briquette press I have seen. The linkage increases the mechanical advantage as it progesses. Makes it quick and efficient.
Thatās the CINVA ram principle. If they used the top loading hopper it would be better yet.
And so it is! Seems odd that in all my looking at briquette presses, I never ran across this CINVA. Thanks for the education.
Thatās a cool machine there, but Iād hate to have to make the 10,000 lbs of briquettes Iād need to heat my house for the winter with it! Needās some mods, hydraulics, auto feed, auto eject, drying line lol!
Machines like that exist for making compressed earth blocks, hydraulic powered and fairly automatic.
I think he is looking for something more like this one. India seems to have a bunch of them.
