Investigation of Wood Sawdust Effect on Production and Final Quality of Composite Pellets Based on Sunflower Husks

• Published in: IOP conference series. Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 501; no. 1; pp. 12002 - 12008
• Main Authors: Matúš, M, Križan, P, Beniak, J, Šooš, Ľ
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 09.04.2019
• Subjects: Agricultural production; Agricultural wastes; Biofuels; Bulk density; Calorific value; Densification; Parameters; Pellets; Post-processing; Sawdust; Sunflowers; Weight
• ISSN: 1757-8981; 1757-899X; 1757-899X
• DOI: 10.1088/1757-899X/501/1/012002

The pressure to diversify the raw material base of solid biofuels is steadily rising worldwide. The waste from agricultural production and its post-processing represents a huge but still little used energy potential. The use of such plant waste brings many technical problems. The paper is focused on research of increasing physical, mechanical and thermal quality indicators of composite pellets based on a mixture of sunflower husks and spruce sawdust. Tested mixtures varied by increasing the weight proportion of wood sawdust from 0% up to 40% in sunflower husks. The quality of this fuel pellets was evaluated using standardized parameters - particular density, bulk density, pellet moisture, mechanical durability, pellet hardness, calorific value, ash content etc.. Realized experiments have shown that it is not only possible to successfully transform this homogenized mixture into fuel pellets (pure sunflower husks represent a considerable problem with densification regard to their composition), but the qualitative parameters of the fuel also increase by increasing the weight proportion of wood in sunflower husks. The research results showed that the optimum ratio of wood component in the composite fuel is 30% based on the resulting mechanical quality parameters and economy of its production.