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Common Fuel Pellets in the Industry: All that you Need to Know

Many people have switched to fuels pellets in an effort to conserve the environment. For starters, fuel pellets can be described as biofuels that have their origin from biomass or organic matter. The biomass must be compressed to qualify as pellet fuel. In general, there are five products that are used to make pellet fuel, and they include virgin lumber, energy crops, agricultural residues and food waste. The last products that can be used to make pellet fuels are industrial wastes alongside their co-products. In the United States, there are many companies that specialize in the production and distribution of these pellet fuels such as Kingdom BioFuel.

More information on wood pellets

The most popularly used fuel pellets are the wood pellets. These pellets are made using sawdust that has been compacted. On the other hand, there are other products that can be used to make this kind of product such as products from lumber milling and construction. They can also be made from wood products during several wood manufacturing processes such as carpentry. There are other ways that wood pellets can be made such as through palm kernel shell, fruit bunches as well as tree tops and coconut shells. There are other pellets that are referred to as black pellets, and they resemble hard black coal.

Classification of pellets

There are several factors that determine the classification of pellets. For instance, there is the ash content of the pellets, their dimensions as well as their moisture content. The heating value of the pellets is another classification measure. Pellet fuels find their use in many places such as cooking, residential and commercial cooking as well as power generation. Efficient pellets should be have low moisture content preferably below 10 percent. At the same time, they should be extremely dense for efficiency purposes.

Most pellets are designed using regular geometry and in small sizes meaning that they have a fine calibration. This works well when automatic feeding is necessary. This means that it’s possible to use pneumatic and auger feeding to feed them to a burner. Fuel pellet high density acts as an added advantage where transportation over long distances is required as well as storage. Due to their efficiency, a wide range of heating furnaces, pellet stoves and heating appliances have been developed across the globe to utilize them. Statistically, it has been reported that the usage of fuel pellet will double in the coming five years in North America alone. Wood pellet production in North America stands at 14 million tons currently.

Hazards associated with pellets

The major concern related to the fuel pellets comes shortly after they have been produced. When freshly produced, it is feared that these pellets consume a lot of oxygen from the atmosphere as they are chemically active. This means that there is little oxygen left in the atmosphere for plants, animals and human consumption. There are concerns that they also emit a lot of carbon monoxide when heated. This is a poisonous gas that can cause death. Finally, fuel pellets have been known to cause fatal accidents in storerooms and even in marine vessels when on transit.