Korean delegates see wood pellet potential in RI

Prof Gyu-Seong Han,  chairman of Korea Association of Pellet 

Abundant forests in Indonesia have the potential to supply Korea with much-needed biomass energy, says a Korean business delegate. 

Han Gyu-seong, chairman of Korea Association of Pellet, made the statement before around 50 Korean business delegates during the “Biomass Industry in Indonesia” business forum organized by the South Korea Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday.

Dr Ir Yetti Rusli,  The Forestry Ministry's environment and climate change expert

Thee forum discussed the prospects and challenges in developing Indonesia’s biomass potential, specifically wood pellets.

The East Asia nation saw an increase in pellet consumption, with 2013 figures estimated at 500,000 tons, compared to 174,000 tons in 2012.

Wood pellets, which can be used to fuel power plants, are compressed biomass deriving from sawdust and waste from sawmilling.

Kim Young-Sun, South Korean Ambassador

Many forum participants said the energy from wood pellets was “renewable, clean and economical”.

Korea is currently looking for biomass sources overseas, including from Indonesia, as the East Asian country is enforcing a 2012 energy policy mandating firms to resort to renewable energy to cut carbon emissions.

It is also targeting a 20 percent boost in renewable energy use as well as aiming to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

“Korea is the world’s 10th-largest energy consumer, fifth-largest oil importer, second-largest coal importer. Sixty-four percent of its electricity is produced from fossil fuels,” Han said.

To reach their objective, Korean firms have sought investments in a number of Asian countries for the development of wood pellets, mainly Vietnam and Malaysia.

Korea imported 122,447 tons of wood pellets in 2012, mainly from Russia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

According to data from Korea, Indonesia offers the cheapest pellet, with the cost, insurance and freight (CIF) price of US$ 131 per ton, below Vietnam’s US$ 144 per ton, and Malaysia’s US$ 141 per ton.

In Indonesia, Korean firm Depian Co. Ltd will work with state-run PT Inhutani III toward developing forest industries and a facility in Pelaihari, South Kalimantan, through PT SL Agri.

Depian has stated its readiness to invest US$20 million in the project, which will supply wood pellets to South Korea.

They will start building the planned facility in October and expect to start operating the plant by March 2014.

The plant will be able to produce 30,000 tons of wood pellets annually, before being upgraded to 100,000 tons annually in 2016.

Trees would be planted on 5,000 hectares to 8,000 hectares of industrial forest that PT Inhutani III was currently preparing, said SL Agri president director Muhammad Akbariah last month.

Depian plans to export all wood pellets produced at the plant back to South Korea.

Association of Indonesian Forest Concessionaires (APHI) executive director Purwadi Soeprihanto said the government should accelerate plantation forest development by issuing new licenses for industrial plantation forests, a key factor in supporting wood pellets.

“But if that is not possible, Korean firms can cooperate with domestic companies to use their licenses,” he said.

He said that out of the total industrial forest permits (HTIs) issued, only 45 percent were active. Many companies holding licenses had ceased operations due to losses.

“The government should also encourage clear incentives to utilize logging waste, as well as reduce
the fossil fuel subsidy,” Purwadi added. (asw)

Source : http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/06/korean-delegates-see-wood-pellet-potential-ri.html

Optimization of Biomass Gasification With GCU

There are 3 kinds of thermal processes known so far, namely combustion, gasification and pyrolysis. Differences of the three could be reviewed by the presence of air / oxygen, temperature and the resulting product. Pyrolysis is a thermal process that oxygen / air is very limited or even 0 percent or vacuum. While the gasification air / oxygen is controlled to a certain amount in order to maximize the product gas. While the amount of combustion air / oxygen is made so that all the excess fuel can burn completely.

Gasifier that works between pyrolysis and combustion primarily requires good control over the amount of air intake / oxygen. Feedstock condition, and the type of gasifier will affect the resulting gas products. Controlling with computer will give accuracy process that is generated so that optimal condition can be identified and maintained. This equipment works on the basis of information from the sensors to get the best air-fuel ratio. Gasifier Control Unit (GCU) below which is used to control the air-fuel ratio in the gasifier.

Gasifier that works continuously with the amount of automation is expected to meet the energy needs in the long term. A gasifier system is easy to operate and reliable performance is the purpose of installation of a number of such instrumentation. An integrated and synchronized system will improve the overall performance of the gasifier. Following presentation of the commercialization of biomass gasification for heat and electricity generation.

Biomass Gasification For Engine Fuel At Sawmill Industry

Biomass gasification is a technology that has been long known in the world and yet has not been widely applied in Indonesia. The use of biomass as a renewable fuel or a carbon neutral fuel and including second generation biofuels made ​​this technology has a new perspective in the era of concerns over the global warming. The potential for biomass is very abundant in Indonesia and the potential to apply this technology. On the other hand the energy needs continue to rise in various fields. There are several gasification technologies that can be used include downdraft, updraft, fluidised bed and entrained flow. To get a more pure gas quality or fewer impurities tar the downdraft gasification technology is the most suitable. Raw materials such as wood wastes with a certain size and water content can be used as feedstock in the gasifier. Gas quality comparison between the various gasification technologies are seen as in the table below:

Tolerance level of each machine is also different. So the gas purity to impurity levels should strive to achieve a high grade or still below the tolerance level.

Gasifier to generate mechanical power or electricity is classified as a power gasifier. Due to the use of gas as a fuel for engines that grade of gas should be better than that directly burned. Process diagrams for gasifier power according to the scheme below:

Judging from the composition of the gas produced each gasifier is also different. In general, the heating value of gas produced is small enough that varied between 4.0 and 6.0 MJ/Nm3 or about 10 to 15% of the calorific value of natural gas. Raw materials and different types of gasifier will affect the composition of the gas produced. Under these conditions need to be modified so that the engine uses fuel gas from the gasifier as enlarging the orifice, ignition timing and so on. The table below:

Sawmill industry in Indonesia will produce biomass waste very much. This potential can be exploited for the use of the gasifier. The gasifier will produce a gas that can be directly used as fuel to generate electricity even machines. With these innovations will reduce fossil fuel consumption significantly. Automated greater economic benefits are also obtained by applying this technology, after deduction for expenses such as investment tools, operational, depreciation and outputs obtained.

To get quality gas is cleaner from impurities, some places use charcoal as a gasifier feedstock. Charcoal can be obtained from the traditional charcoal producers or charcoal manufacturer with modern technology.  Charcoal as residue from gasification of wood waste can also be used as feed in charcoal gasification. Charcoal gasification also has a lot to do. This technology will be more competitive as a result of expensive fossil fuel because the reserves dwindling and environmental issues related to global warming.

Biomass Densification For Pellet And Briquette

Biomass in general has a large volume so it is not efficient in transporting and handling. So as to resolve the issue needs to be compressed in volume of biomass by means of a press machine. Application of pressure especially with the high temperatures make the biomass will be compressed and strong glue. The compression will make solid fuel which has a higher energy density per volume is the same. In general, this way no longer needed extra adhesive from the outside, because lignin compounds in the biomass that will act as a binder.

Pellet is currently produced by large-scale and large users while briquettes are generally produced on a smaller scale and its not as much as pellets. Both pellets and briquettes made ​​from hardwood and softwood. At a glance we can distinguish pellets and briquettes based on its dimensions. Smaller sized pellets with a diameter of about 10 mm while the larger sized briquettes with a size of about 50 to 100 mm with a length of typically 60 to 150 mm and even larger. Biomass fuels has gained the attention and interest as environmentally friendly (almost zero sulfur content) and including renewableenergy. Application of biomass pellets and briquettes for household fuel to industries.

Energy content is the critical point for a number of users. For example, the high calorific value could create higher combustion temperatures and potentially damage the furnace. Used pellet and briquette exports need to be sampled and tested to ensure the applicable standards. Wood briquettes or Synthetic Logs or Uncarbonized Briquette is different from charcoal briquettes, because the raw material of wood briquette is biomass (usually sawdust) that are not charred / carbonized or physically resembles wood pellets only bigger.

As a carbon neutral fuel because it comes from biomass, pellets and briquettes are alternative heating fuel to coal heating and boiler which could be used for a variety of modern combustion systems. As fuel both briquettes and pellets is comparable with coal in terms of energy content, and offers a variety of gas emission reductions of NOx and SOx and low ash content. In a number of countries in Europe and America, pellet and briquette fuels is becoming more popular these days because of the urge to use  renewable and environmentally friendly fuel.

Carbon Neutral Fuel With Charcoal Briquettes

Laboratory Scale Charcoal Briquette Machine

Charcoal produced from pyrolysis process can then be used as fuel. Briquetting will make a more solid fuel that is cheaper to transport and easier to handle. Charcoal briquettes can be burned and last much longer and more consistently than lump charcoal. Fuel from biomass charcoal include carbon neutral fuel that does not contribute to global warming because of the carbon from the charcoal from plant sources by which plants take carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. The carbon balance calculation (in terms of origin and utilization) will be neutral because there is no addition of elemental carbon to the atmosphere. Below are some photo-photo charcoal briquettes:
  

 Quality charcoal produced from pyrolysis process would also affect the quality of the fuel produced charcoal briquettes. In addition to mechanical devices to compress, adhesive is also used for the manufacture of charcoal briquettes. The form of lump charcoals will be reduced in size to a certain particle size, devices such as disk mill is widely used in laboratory scale. Various variables can be explored to produce good quality briquettes such as pressure, number and type of adhesive, the quality and size of the particles of charcoal and so on. Charcoal briquettes are widely used for barbeque, among others in the United States, Western European countries and Russia (Moscow)

Various Advantages of Biomass Pyrolysis Process

Pyrolysis is one for the thermal processing of biomass waste. There are several motivations that drive people to do the processing of waste biomass in this way, according to the scheme as well.

Biomass feedstock that can be processed by pyrolysis is very diverse, from agricultural wastes, plantation, forestry and livestock. With this process would normally be produced major results in the form of charcoal. Pyrolysis process operating conditions can be set as desired depending on the quality of the resulting product. The higher the temperature pyrolysis of coal will be produced by the higher carbon content and a lower volatile content. Under this scheme pyrolysis tool that can be used for research in the laboratory.

The pyrolysis technology has actually been developed since long and recently re-gained attention as a second generation biofuel, because of environmental concerns triggered a global warming. If you are interested in creating and ordering the equipment, please contact us.