• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.41 no.6
• /
• pp.475-489
• /
• 2013

This work was conducted to investigate the effect of the addition of binders, such as rapeseed flour, coffee waste, bark, pine cone and lignin powder, on the fuel characteristics of the pellets fabricated with larch and tulip tree sawdust. Moisture content, bulk density and higher heating value of most pellets fabricated with the binders exceeded the 1st-grade pellet standard designated by Korea Forest Research Institute, but ash content of the pellets fabricated with rapeseed flour or bark of 10 wt% on the dry weight basis of sawdust was satisfied with just the 2nd- or 3rd-grade standard. The durability of tulip tree-pellets was positively influenced by the addition of rapeseed flour, coffee waste or lignin powder and increased with increasing the amount of the binders. For larch-pellets, the increase of binders did not greatly affect the durability, and even the durability reduced with the increase of bark or pine cone. From the microscopic observation, the obvious feature of pellet surfaces was not identified by the type of binder but by the addition amount of the binder. In summary, the addition of binders contributed to the fuel characteristics of wood pellets, and particularly the characteristics of wood pellets fabricated with coffee waste improved greatly. Therefore, if the binders are secured sufficiently with a reasonable cost, it might be possible to commercialize wood/binder pellets, which have better fuel characteristics than conventional wood pellets.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.36-42
• /
• 2010

This study has been carried out to investigate the characteristics of pellets manufactured from sawdust, and a mixture of liquid wood-tar and sawdust. Pellets were prepared at room temperature under 2000 kgf/$cm^2$ using an universal testing machine. The pellets prepared from Q. variabilis wood had slightly higher density than those prepared from P. densiflora wood. The amount of fine particles from Q. variabilis wood pellets was smaller than those from P. densiflora wood. The pellets from P. densiflora wood had higher heating values than those from Q. variabilis wood. The wood pellets manufactured with wood tar showed higher moisture content, density and heating value, but lower fine particles. From the experimental results, it is suggested that wood tar can be used to obtain the higher quality wood pellets.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.11a
• /
• pp.104.1-104.1
• /
• 2010

We investigated combustion characteristics of wood pellets in a combustion equipment with adjusting amount of flue gas. Maximum temperature in a combustion chamber was $850^{\circ}C$. Higher heating Value of a domestic wood pellet tested is 19.1 MJ/kg and water content was 8.3%. Amount of flue gas causes big effect on burning characteristics in $450{\sim}600^{\circ}C$. Wood pellet does not burn in low temperature atmosphere less than $450^{\circ}C$ and low flue gas flow rate. We made burning the pellet that is made in Korea, USA, Chile and Canada. Color of foreign pellets are bright brown and they made by mainly sawdust. Korean pellet is a dark brown color because it contains bark. There are some differences in the result of elementary analysis and technical analysis. According to the result of burning experiment, burning times of each countries's pellet are similar.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.318-326
• /
• 2014

This study was conducted to investigate the potential of non-used forest biomass residues as raw materials for making wood pellets with additives such as wood tar and starch and to evaluate fuel characteristics of the pellets. Wood tar, a by-product provided from the carbonization process of wood, could be a suitable additive for wood pellet production due to its higher calorific value and lower hazardous heavy metals, such as cadmium and mercury, compared to woody biomass. When the wood tar (10 wt%) was added, the calorific value was increased from 4,630 kcal/kg (wood pellet without additive) to 4,800 kcal/kg (wood pellet with additive). With the increase of additive amount into wood pellet, the length and individual density of wood pellet increased. In addition, bulk density of the pellets was increased, whereas the fine content was decreased. Consequently the overall productivity of wood pellets was improved by adding 2 w% additives into wood pellets; the percentage of productivity increase was 5.9% and 4.9% for adding starch and wood tar, respectively.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.61-65
• /
• 2011

Biomass is considered to be a major potential fuel and renewable resource for the future. In fact, there is high potential to produce the large amount of energy from biomass around the world. In this study, to obtain basic data for practical application of agricultural and forest by-products as fuel of heating system in agriculture, agricultural and forest biomass resources were surveyed, the pelletizer with capacity of $50\;kg{\cdot}h^{-1}$ was designed and manufactured and pellets were made by the pelletizer. High heating value, ash content, etc. of pellets made of agricultural and forest by-products were estimated. Straw of rice was the largest agricultural biomass in 2009 and the total amount of rice straw converted into energy of $299{\times}10^3$ TOE. And in 2009, amount of forest by-product converted into energy of $9,579{\times}10^3$ TOE. High heating values of pellets made of stem and seed of rape, stem of oat, rice straw and rice husk were 16,034, 16,026, 16,089, 15,650, $15,044\;kJ{\cdot}kg^{-1}$ respectively. High heating values of pellets made of agricultural by-products were average 83.6% compared to that of wood pellet. Average bulk density of pellets made of stem and seed of rape, stem of oat, rice straw and rice husk was $1,400\;kg{\cdot}m^{-3}$ ($1.4\;g{\cdot}cm^{-3}$). Ash contents of the pellets were 6.6, 7, 6.2, 5.5, 33% respectively. Rice husk pellet produced the largest ash content compared to other kinds of pellets.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.43 no.6
• /
• pp.757-767
• /
• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of moisture content and particle size of sawdust on the fuel characteristics of wood pellets produced with Mongolian oak (Quercus mongolica, QUM), red pine (Pinus densiflora, PID) and larch (Larix kaempferi, LAK) sawdust using a flat-die pelletizer. Prior to produce wood pellets, the sawdust was controlled to the moisture content of 8, 11, 12% and was screened to the particle size of 2 and 4 mesh. In the analysis of its chemical composition, QUM had a high ash content, and PID and LAK contained large amount of lignin. In case of the fuel characteristics, PID pellets had the lowest moisture content of pellets (P-MC), and LAR pellets was found to have the highest bilk density (BD) and durability (DU). With the increase of moisture content of sawdust (S-MC), P-MC and DU of QUM, PID and LAK pellets increased, but BD of QUM and LAK pellets decreased. When size of sawdust used for the production of wood pellets decreased, P-MC and BD of LAK pellets and BD of QUM pellets increased. Decrease of particle size contributed to the increase of DU of QUM, PID and LAK pellets. In addition, BD and DU of QUM pellets produced with 12% S-MC sawdust increased as its particle size reduced. For LAK pellets, DU was not influence by particle size in the S-MCs of 10% and 12%, but increased with the decrease of particle size in the S-MC of 8%. Based on the results and economical aspects, 10% MC and 2 mesh paricle size for QUM sawdust and 12% MC and 2 mesh particle size for PID sawdust might be optimal conditions for pellets production, and fuel characteristics of wood pellets produced by the conditions greatly exceeded the minimum requirements for the $1^{st}$-grade wood pellets of the standard designated by Korea Forest Research Institute.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.06a
• /
• pp.252.2-252.2
• /
• 2010

Biomass is considered to be a major potential fuel and renewable resource for the future. In fact, there is high potential to produce the large amount of energy from biomass around the world. In this study, to obtain basic data for practical application of wood pellet and wood pellet boiler system as heating system in agriculture, agricultural biomass resources were surveyed, pellet was made of agricultural by-product such as stem of rape, oat and rice, ricehusk and sawdust and wood pellet boiler system with capacity of 116 kW was manufactured and installed in greenhouse of $38.5m{\times}32m$. High heating value, bulk density and ash content of pellet made of agricultural by-product and efficiency and heating performance of this system was estimated. Rice straw was the largest agricultural biomass in 2005 and the total amount of rice straw converted into energy of $131.71{\times}10^{11}$ kJ. And in 2005, total amount of forest' by-product converted into energy of $29,277.05{\times}10^{11}$ kJ. High heating values of pellets made of agricultural by-products of stem and seed of rape, stem of oat, rice straw and rice husk were 16,034, 16,026, 16,089, 15,650, 15,044 kJ/kg respectively. High heating values of pellets made of agricultural by-products were 83.6% compared to that of wood pellet. Average bulk density of pellets made of agricultural by-products of stem and seed of rape, stem of oat, rice straw and rice husk was 1,400 $kg/m^3$. Ash contents of the pellets were 6.6, 7.0, 6.2, 5.5, 33% respectively. Ash content of rice husk pellet was the largest compared to other kind of pellets. To increase efficiency of agricultural pellet boiler, the boiler adopted secondary heat exchanger. The agricultural pellet boiler designed and manufactured in this study had high efficiency of 84.2% compared to the conventional agricultural pellet boiler, when water flow rate, exhaust gas temperature and average combustion furnace temperature were 39L/min, $180^{\circ}C$, $680^{\circ}C$ respectively. And pellet supplying and pausing time were 13, 43 seconds respectively. In March of 2010, prices of wood pellet, agricultural tax free diesel, diesel, kerosene were 350 won/kg, 811 won/L, 1,422 won/L, 976 Won/L respectively. Also in terms of energy, prices per same heating value were 77.8, 90.1, 158, 108.4 Won/Mcal. Energy saving rate of wood pellet was 16, 50, 39% compared to agricultural tax free diesel, diesel and kerosene respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
• /
• v.34 no.4
• /
• pp.818-826
• /
• 2017

In accordance with the New and Renewable Energy Supply Statistics, biomass power generation has surged since 2013, and use of wood pellet has the most sharply increased, 696Gwh in 2013, 2,764Gwh in 2014 and 2,512Gwh in 2015. Total domestic wood pellet consumption was 1.48million tons in 2015, of which wood pellets consumed for power generation account for about 1.08million tons, about 73%. In this study, we gained the result that the wood pellet would be consumed 2.61million tons in 2020, 6.85million tons in 2025, 11.39million tons in 2030. We also calculated the optimum biomass power generation, on the premise that the power plant co-fire 50% biomass, and the result was that 2.26million tons of wood pellets should be produced domestically in 2021 to operate the present licensed wood pellet power plant from this study.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
• /
• 2011.04a
• /
• pp.171-178
• /
• 2011

During the last decades, global warming from the increased amount of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide has become a major political and scientific issue. Burning fossil fuels (natural gas, coal and oil) releases $CO_2$, which is also a major cause of global warming. Among the clean environment, wood pellets are considered as promising renewable fossil fuels because of clean burning characteristics, reduction of particulate and NOx emission from combustion. In Korea, more than 50% pellets have to be imported every year because of shortage of feedstocks. On the other hand, about 80% of wood pulps are greatly dependent upon overseas products due to limited forest resources. Under this situation, this study explored how efficiently we have to use forest biomass instead of total dependence on wood as raw materials for pellets.

• New & Renewable Energy
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2022

This study analyzed the anticipated supply-and-demand of forest biomass energy (through wood pellets) until 2050, in South Korea. Comparing the utilization rates of forest resources of five countries (United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Japan, and S. Korea), it was found that S. Korea does not nearly utilize its forest resources for energy purposes. The total demand for wood pellets in S. Korea (based on a power generation efficiency of 38%) was predicted to be 3,629 and 4,371 thousand tons in 2034 and 2050, respectively. The anticipated total wood pellet power generation ratio to target power consumption is 1.13% (5,745 GWh), 1.17% (6,336 GWh), and 1.25% (7,631 GWh) in 2020, 2030, and 2050, respectively. Low value-added forest residues left unattended in forests are called "Unused Forest Biomass" in S. Korea. From the analysis, the total annual potential amount of raw material, sustainably collectible amount, and available amount of wood pellet in 2050 were estimated to be 6,877, 4,814, and 3,370 thousand tons, respectively. The rate of contribution to Nationally Determined Contributions was up to 0.64%. Through this study, the authors found that forest biomass energy will contribute to a carbon neutral society in the near future at the national level.