Madagascar Raw Material Wood Pelleting Test
Project Background
As the increasing demand to the wood pellets in the EU, the native wood pellets supplying can not meet the consumption any more, due to lack of raw materials. More and more wood pellet projects investors turn there eyes to Africa. The attractive advantages of investing a wood pellet project is apparent.
1. Sufficient and cheap raw material supplying
As the conventional wood supplying market, there are ten of thousands saw mills in the tropic forests. The residues from the saw mills or timbers, such as sawdust, wood shavings, wood slabs, wood chips, wood blocks etc. is able to be processed to wood pellets. Most of the wood species are tropic hard wood, the density, PDI, burning duration of the final wood pellets is higher and longer.
2. Much lower cost for workshop, land and labor than Europe;
3. Short shipping distance from the main seaports, spreading along the African coastline, to each port in Europe.
Africa is growing to the wood pellets supplying base to the EU and the world.
Our client from France would invest a 1 t/h complete wood pellet production line in Madagascar. The output wood pellets would be exported to Europe and should meet EN+ standard. This project would be a trial one, great potential for extending the production is visible in the near future.
Test Report
| PELLETING TEST DATA SHEET | |
| SAMPLE NUMBER: SMZM50-1 | TEST POSITION: SIMEC FACTORY |
| TEST DATE: 23/04/15 | TESTED BY SIMEC |
| MATERIAL | Mixture pine, rosewood, anakaraka wood. |
| CONDITION | Shavings and sawdust |
| MOISTURE(as received, %) | 12 |
| PELLET DIAMETER REQUESTED | 6 mm, used ¼” pellet diameter die for testing |
| Pellet Mill | SPM420 Pellet Mill |
| Power | 90 Kw |
| Feeder Type | standard screw auger |
| Die spec | 6 mm |
| Additional Moisture | added 3% water |
| Type of Binder | N/A |
| Pellet Temp(˚C) | 80 |
| Load Amps | 38 |
| PDI (pellet durability index)* | 98.9 |
| Moisture of Pellets (%) | 6 |
| Pellet Density (kg/m³) | 1.2 |
| Notes: wood shavings was first hammer mill ground to 3-5 mm. | |
| The material ran very well, made good quality pellets with few fines. | |
Raw Material before Crushing
Sawdust from Hammer Mill Comparing with Initial Shavings
Final Wood Pellets
Final Wood Pellets