Wood Pellet Production: With a Rotary Dryer or Belt Dryer?

Air quality is an important factor in environmental health. The better the air quality, the better the environmental quality. Maintaining clean air quality is sometimes not something that is easy and cheap, especially for industry players. The higher the air quality standard used, the greater the effort and cost incurred.

In the wood pellet industry as an example, especially in the use of dryer. Almost all wood pellet industries in Asia use rotary dryer and almost none use belt dryer. Meanwhile, in Europe belt dryers are widely used because of lower emission than rotary dryers. In addition, belt dryers also have higher efficiency and can work at lower temperatures than rotary dryers. With a number of these advantages, however, belt dryer are also more expensive compared with rotary dryer.

Basically, rotary dryer can also have good performance, especially in terms of emissions if they are designed and operated properly. The use of high-efficiency dust collectors such as cyclones and bag filters can achieve high emission quality standards. However, the higher the efficiency of the dust collector, the higher the power required.

So the choice used actually depends on the expected air emission target. Europe and US/Canada generally have higher air quality standards than countries in Asia. This makes the emission aspect an important concern for them. Meanwhile, in terms of wood pellet production, the priority aspect is efficiency, so that with good performance the dryer can produce dry wood powder product that are suitable for feeding into pelletiser. The quality of the wood pellets as the final result is also very dependent on the quality of the dry powder product from the dryer. Meanwhile, in terms of safety, the high concentration of dust particles so that they can accumulate in a number of places in the wood pellet factory also has a greater potential for fires to occur.

Wood Pellet Export Opportunities
The lack of supply of wood pellets in Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine war caused wood pellet producers from Southeast Asia and North America to try to seize this opportunity. Production of wood pellets from Russia is estimated at around 3 million tonnes/year which previously filled the European market is now banned, so as a result of this ban the stocks of wood pellets in Europe have decreased drastically. The large demand and lack of supply will naturally push up prices, especially when coupled with increases in other energy commodities, so that the price of wood pellets continues to increase. In fact, because of the high price of wood pellets in Europe, wood pellets from Vietnam, which previously planned to be exported to Japan, were diverted to Europe.

It is also predicted that this uncertain condition will not recover in a short time. In 2021 Europe leads the production of wood pellets with production reaching nearly 20 million tons or around 48% of global production, while consumption of wood pellets reaches 24.5 million tons. Meanwhile, according to Hawkin Wright's data for 2020-2021, the growth in global demand for wood pellets has reached 18.4%, while supply or production growth is only 8.4%. Indonesia should have a great opportunity to become a major wood pellet player with its potential. The wood pellet production can be exported to Europe to cover the shortage of supply and in general to meet global demand.

Wood Pellet Production from Acacia Industrial Plantation Forest (HTI) Waste

Acacia forests or plantations in Indonesia are estimated to reach 2 million hectares and almost all of these acacia forests are used to supply pulp and paper mills. Every pulp and paper mill always has acacia forest with an area of ​​​​thousands of hectares to meet the pulp and paper mill. Acacia wood with a minimum diameter of 8 cm is used as the raw material, while those with a diameter smaller than that are only used as waste. After the tree is cut down, then a new planting is carried out (replanting). If every one hectare produces 20 tons of acacia wood waste, then with an area of ​​20,000 hectares, 400,000 tons of acacia wood waste is produced. The area of ​​20,000 hectares of acacia plantations is not too big, this is because there are a number of HTI (industrial plantation forest) concession holders which cover an area of ​​hundreds of thousands of hectares, so the volume of wood waste produced is also very large. The wood waste is very potential for the production of wood pellets. The need for wood pellets is also increasing along with the decarbonization program or fossil fuel substitution.

Wood products come from different parts of the tree, each tree has a unique potential, depending on a number of factors including the diameter and straightness of the trunk. In acacia trees trunk diameter is the main parameter.

For the production of wood pellets, you can use raw materials from wood waste or wood that worth of waste wood. This is why wood that is valuable or has a high economy is not suitable for the production of wood pellets (from an economic point of view). Users of wood pellets are mainly for power plants so that the volume of their needs is large. Waste wood such as from acacia plantations is very potential and suitable for the production of large capacity wood pellets. In addition to Japan and Korea as the largest wood pellet market in Asia, currently Europe is also increasingly being encouraged to use wood pellets. The occurrence of the Russia-Ukraine war was one of the driving forces. The dependence on fossil fuels from Russia has become a concern for European countries in particular, so that the urge to use renewable energy is getting bigger. Biomass, especially wood pellets, also has a large portion in the plan to use renewable energy in Europe, especially in the RED (Renewable Energy Directive) II. Even in the current war conditions, the need for wood pellets for space heating is also getting bigger, although for this segment, especially firewood is their main fuel. With the disruption of energy supply from Russia, it is predicted that this winter will be a tough winter in Europe.