The effect of pellet physical properties on the handling of pelleted biomass fuels in practical use

It is well established that the many different types of biomass commonly used, behave very differently in use, especially in respect of the way they flow through fuel handling systems at the power plant. Part of this is due to different basic materials, but much of it is due to differences in processing between harvest and utilisation. For example, wood can be left in-the-round, chopped into short pieces, chipped, ground or pelleted, and all these different forms of what is the same material, have very different handling properties. They therefore demand quite different storage, discharge, handling and feeding equipment at the power station and once the equipment is chosen, often it closes the door to using other forms of the same fuel, let alone different basic materials.

Similar considerations apply to other biomass materials, for example straw may be fed in whole bales, scarified, chopped, ground to dust or again pelleted, also with critical effect on the handling systems needed. This research will measure of the handling properties of a wide range of different combinations of material and processing technique, to produce a large body of data from which trends and correlations can be extracted. It will also develop a fundamental understanding of the relationship between material, processing and handling properties.

This project is led by Professor M Bradley, assisted by Dr S Zigan, Dr R Berry and Murtala Mohammad Abdulmumini (Research Student)