Wood Chip Production Waste for Wood Pellet or Wood Briquette Production

The production of wood chips as biomass fuel in cofiring of PLN's (Indonesia's state-owned electricity company) coal powerplants has been increasingly popular lately. Wood chip production is the easiest biomass fuel production compared to various biomass fuel products currently produced by the industry. The availability of raw materials is the main factor in the sustainability of production. The calorific value of wood chips depends on the species or type of wood used and its dryness level (water content). Hardwoods and low water content are ideal products for wood chips. And because it has a low bulk density of around 250 - 350 kg / m3, the transportation factor is another aspect that is very important for the delivery of wood chip products.

The particle size of wood chips has also been determined so that handling and storage are easier. To obtain the desired particle size of wood chips, screening is carried out after the wood trunk or pieces are chopped with a wood chipper machine. With these prerequisites, there are products that are rejected from the production process, namely wood chip products that are too large (oversize) and products that are too small (undersize). Products that are too large (oversize) can be returned to the chipper machine to be chopped again, but wood chip products with particle sizes that are too small (undersize) must be used for other things so that in addition to zero waste wood chip production, it can also provide additional income for the wood chip producer.

Small particle sizes such as sawdust from wood chip waste production can be used for the production of wood pellets or wood briquettes (pini kay briquettes). And even wood briquettes are more tolerant of slightly larger particle sizes because wood briquette products have a higher density than wood pellets, in addition wood briquettes can also be further processed into charcoal briquettes (sawdust charcoal briquettes). Wood briquettes themselves are commonly used in countries with four seasons, especially in winter for home heating. While charcoal briquettes (sawdust charcoal briquettes) are commonly used for BBQ, especially for Middle Eastern countries and Turkiye.

In the production of wood chips, it is estimated that biomass waste that is approximately the size of sawdust is around 20-25%, meaning that if wood chip production reaches 5,000 tons/month, the waste is around 1,000 - 1,250 tons/month. This is sufficient for the production of wood briquettes and sawdust charcoal briquettes. Meanwhile, if you want to produce wood pellets, especially for the export market, usually a production capacity of around 5,000 - 10,000 tons/month is needed. Of course, this cannot be done. In addition, the investment in equipment for the production of wood briquettes, sawdust charcoal briquettes and even wood pellets for this purpose is also much larger than the production of wood chips. This makes it more reasonable if the production of wood briquettes or sawdust charcoal briquettes is carried out by other parties. The other party will process the wood chip factory waste into wood briquettes, charcoal briquettes (sawdust charcoal briquettes) and because the complexity of production and equipment costs are also higher, it is natural that the profits obtained from processing this waste are also higher.

The world price of wood pellets, like palm kernel shells (PKS), has fluctuated a lot, and lately the price has tended to be low. Palm kernel shells (PKS) themselves are biomass fuels that are competitors of wood pellets in the global market but are cheaper because they come from one of the solid wastes of palm oil mills that are processed simply. With these conditions, coupled with the fact that it is very difficult to obtain adequate volumes of waste from wood chip factories, the production of wood briquettes (pini kay briquettes) or charcoal briquettes (sawdust chracoal briquettes) becomes a rational choice. In addition, the stable price of the two products makes it even more attractive to consider them.

Production of Pini Kay Briquette from Plywood and Veneer Factory Waste

Indonesia's plywood production is estimated at more than 10 million cubic meters each year, which is produced from hundreds of plywood factories, even Indonesia once dominated the world wood industry in the period 1980 to 1995. The existence of plywood factories in Indonesia has actually been around for a long time, but its development only became apparent after in 1972. After the period 1980-85 the number of factories increased rapidly. At that time there were no less than 110 medium to large scale factories in almost all provinces in Indonesia. There are five provinces as the largest plywood producers in Indonesia, namely East Java, East Kalimantan, Central Java, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan. And six other provinces that are starting to develop are Banten, Papua, Central Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, Riau and Jambi. Most of the plywood is for the export market.

APKINDO (Indonesian Wood Panel Association) is a forum for plywood and veneer industry players. When APKINDO was formed on February 12, 1976, it was initiated by 13 plywood companies, while currently it has members from more than 125 industries spread throughout Indonesia. APKINDO aims to foster unity and togetherness and voice the interests of the plywood industry to utilize logs more efficiently, absorb more labor and increase added value. APKINDO's role continues to this day, one of which is to support the SVLK policy which is believed to be able to restore the positive image of Indonesian forestry in the eyes of the world, so that it will make it easier for Indonesian wood products, especially plywood, to win competition in the global market. 

The volume of wood waste in the plywood industry is quite large, reaching almost 55% or more than 5 million tons per year of national plywood production. The potential for this waste is quite large and has great potential to be processed into pini kay briquette (wood briquette screw type). Why should have to process it into pini kay briquette (wood briquette screw type)? Pini kay briquette is the choice for the solution to the plywood waste problem because apart from the production process being easier, the machine investment is also cheaper. This is because plywood factory wood waste is already dry so it does not require a drying process. Apart from being quite expensive, the dryer also have operational costs. It is also very possible to obtain high quality due to the low ash content, because the wood for plywood production has been debarked so that the content can be reduced to below 1%.

Veneer is a thin sheet of board used to make plywood. The veneers are arranged and glued together, in odd quantities, so that they become plywood. Many veneer manufacturers do not have plywood manufacturing units, but in general plywood factories have veneer production units. Veneers can be made by peeling (rotary cutting), slicing, sawing and sharpening. Indonesian veneer production is currently quite large as is the waste it produces. This waste will also have great added value by processing it into pini kay briquettes, just like the plywood waste above.

The pini kay briquette production process can use the plywood and veneer industry waste mentioned above. Before being compressed into pinikay briquettes in a briquette machine or screw press, the waste needs to be uniform in size to the size of sawdust and also have a dryness level of around 10%. Wood waste that is large in size needs to be reduced in size first and the dryness level also needs to be tried to reach the 10% range. With a screw press / extruder, wood biomass from these wastes can be compacted (densified) up to 1400 kg/m3 or much denser than wood pellets which are around 700 kg/m3. The pini kay briquette product can then be cut into certain sizes and ready to be marketed, especially for the export market. The need for pini kay briquettes is mainly as space heating fuel. Furthermore, this pini kay briquette can also be further processed into charcoal briquettes or commonly called sawdust charcoal briquettes. With this density, the burning time for briquetted charcoal is twice that of ordinary charcoal or more. Meanwhile, the main use of charcoal briquette is for barbeque.

For the plywood and veneer industry which produces up to thousands of tonnes of woody biomass waste every month, potentially becoming an environmental problem, the production of pini kay briquette could be an effective solution. And if there is a plywood and veneer industry that is interested in producing pini kay briquettes, we are ready to help the market.

Don't Choose The Wrong Machine: Wood Pelletizer With Feed Pelletiser, and Wood Extruder With Charcoal Extruder

The visual appearance alone can sometimes be unbelievable. Two things can visually appear the same or very similar but turn out to be different. This often happens in the production of wood pellets and wood briquettes (pini kay briquette / uncarbonised briquette). And what's worse, this machine is the heart of the industrial production process, namely the pelletiser in the wood pellet industry and the extruder in the wood briquette industry (pini kay briquette / uncarbonised briquette). So that errors in selecting the machine can also have fatal consequences, namely not only is the production target not achieved, even the product in question is not successfully produced. This is why the buyer or user of the machine must be careful about the machine that will be purchased and used.

In the wood pellet industry, mistakes often occur, namely pelletisers are used for animal feed but are used for wood pellets. As a result, wood pellets may not be formed at all because the power for feed pelletisers is much smaller compared to pelletisers for wood or wood pellet production. Offers of cheap prices often make buyers or users tempted and do not look further, so that as a result they will be disappointed.

Likewise in the wood briquette industry (pini kay briquette / uncarbonised briquette). Wood extruders also have much larger motors than charcoal extruders. Briquettes produced with a wood extruder apart from not requiring additional adhesive are also denser and harder due to the use of a high-powered motor. The mistake that can occur is that a charcoal extruder is used for a wood extruder and this also usually happens because the price is cheaper. The briquettes produced from the wood extruder can then also be made into charcoal, producing the final product in the form of charcoal briquettes. Although charcoal briquette production using a charcoal extruder will also produce this product, the process route and product quality are different. Below is the route for the charcoal briquette production process.

The raw material used in route 1 is wood dust such as sawdust which is then pressed or compacted with a wood extruder. With strong pressure and high heat, no additional adhesive is needed, but lignin, which is a natural polymer found in wood, acts as an adhesive. The resulting briquettes can then be charcoaled in a carbonization furnace and the final product is charcoal briquettes. Meanwhile, in route 2, the raw materials are charcoaled or carbonized first, then the charcoal is mixed with adhesive, usually starch and pressed or compacted using a charcoal extruder. The use of additional adhesive is because in charcoal, lignin has been decomposed in the previous carbonization or carbonization process. The final product produced is charcoal briquettes. The quality of the charcoal briquettes in the route 1 process is better than the route 2 process because apart from being denser so the burning time is longer as well as the heat produced.

So, in order not to make the wrong choice, buyer / user have to be careful and precise about the specifications of the machine, as well as knowing the raw materials and production process and don't be easily tempted by offers of cheap prices. The greater the production capacity, the greater the need for pelletiser and extruder equipment, so that if the wrong choice occurs, the risk is fatal, because these machines are expensive. It is also important to note that the equipment purchased also comes from a manufacturer that has been tested so that it has reliable performance.