The production process and pricing of wood pellets in Finland

INTRODUCTION

Research on pellets is ongoing all over the world. The pellet is produced from the raw materials that are derived from the wood processing industries or agricultural activities. The energy that comes from fuels has similar efficiency to that coming from pellets (Zawislak et al. 2019). Pellet became popular in the world, especially for close to neutral CO2 emission. It is one kind of fuel that is profitable for business and transport overseas. There has been a rapid increase in the demand for pellets all over the world. Sweden, Canada, USA, Germany, Austria, Finland, Italy, Poland Denmark, and Russia are the major pellet producing countries of the world with a net production of 8.5 million tons in the year 2007. In Europe, Sweden produces the highest amount of pellet, while Finland’s production market is export-oriented, and the domestic market is smaller than export (Selkimaki et al. 2010). In Asia, China, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia are the pioneer of wood pellet production (Thran et al. 2017). Although there is no literature found for the production of wood pellets in Bangladesh, the raw materials available from the forest and the wood processing industry can play an essential role in pellet production.

Objectives of this thesis include:

To identify the production process and pricing of wood pellets in Finland.
To assess the potential of wood pellets for industrial/domestic uses in Bangladesh.

To assess the availability of raw materials suitable for energy pellet production in Bangladesh.

2 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF PELLETS

History of pellets

The history of wood pellets can be traced back to the 1870s. Due to the development of the industry and the subsequent growing feed requirement, it became necessary to produce ingredients that are needed as raw materials in the industry. The first wood pellet machine was built in 1906 and was linked to Smulder & Co. machine factory. After that, North America produced its first fuel pellets in the 1920s, and the raw materials were sawdust from sawmills. As at that time, sawdust was directly used to create pellets without any preparation. If the wood contains a more considerable amount of fiber, then it needs less amount of pressure for pellet production (Kocsis and Etele, 2019). Dr. Rudolf Gunnerman was the pioneer of wood pellet, he was from Germany, and after the Second World War, he moved to the United States. In 1976, he invented wood pellet boilers, which were initially used in pellet production. The idea of wood pellet comes from the crisis of energy that occurred in the 1979s in Europe and North America. It was during this period that people started considering wood pellets as an energy source or the alternative of oil. The demand for pellets decreased when the oil price dropped in 1981 in America. The wood pellets machine, which was initially used for the production of animal feed pellets and was later upgraded courtesy of improved technology and then used to generate energy from the pellets(Quora n.d).

The production of wood pellets started in the US 1970s. However, large scale production started in the 1990s and expanded over the years. By the year 2015, 25 million tons of wood pellet was produced as well as consumed. The production of wood pellets also grew day by day worldwide (Thran et al. 2017). In Finland, the production of wood pellet started in 1998, and it was export-oriented to Sweden. In 2001, Finland exported 80% of its pellet to Sweden, Denmark, the UK, and Belgium. Interestingly, the percentage of pellets exported from Finland is higher compared to the percentage of pellets consumed locally. Notably, the domestic consumption of wood pellets has been increasing gradually, and in 2005 their local consumption was 25% of their production. Finland is suitable for pellet production as 90% of the land cover by forest (Amisy n.d).

What is wood pellet?

The term pellet means a small round masses substance. Pellets are usually round mass, mainly composed of materials that are compressed and with a cylindrical or spherical shape.

The word pellet is used in plural form as pellets are not used separately. Various types of materials are used for pellet production that is pelletized thermally (Obernberger and Gerold 2010).

Wood pellet can be defined as the one kind of fuel that is produced by densifying and crushing of waste wood. For example, forestry residues, sawdust, byproducts of industry like forestry, and old paper waste are some of the raw materials used in the production of pellets. The pellet may be about 1-2 cm length, and the diameters usually are 6, 8, 10, or 12mm. The maximum diameter of the pellet can be 25mm. It is not necessary to use lignin for pellet production because the elements of wood play the role of a binder (Pellet Club n.d). There are different types of pellets available today is shown in figure 1 (Thran et al., 2017).

Figure 1. Pellets examples from different materials and processes.

2.3 Properties of pellet

Pellets are ordinarilytube-shaped wood fuel, which is compressed and made by products of mechanical wood industries. The raw materials are pounding dust,sawdustand cutter shavings, or any new biomass. The bark and wood chips are also utilized as raw materials but must be dried for some time before being used. The pellets made in Finland are 8 mm in diameter and a length of 10-30 mm. The Moisture content ranges between 7% and 12% and a low ash content of 0.5%. The bulk density is usually between 650-700 kgandm³. The caloric value is estimated at 4.7-5.0 kWh/kg. Besides, the energy content of pellets is 3000-3300 kwh/loose m3, which is the same as 300-330 liter of light fuel oil. A ton of pellets occupies 1.5 m3 of space, which is the same space taken by 470-500 liter of light fuel oil. Pellets end up moist in the event of exposure to water. TTS institute examined the five sorts of Finnish pellets and results shown inTable 1. The contrast was minor in all the varieties, and items did not contain any harmful additive. All varieties had similar net caloric values (Saracoglu et al., 2009).

Table 1. Properties of Finnish wood pellets (Saracoglu, 2009).

Property	Unit	Product 1	Product 2	Product 3	Product 4	Product 5
C	%,dry	49.80	49.70	49.72	49.39	49.12
H	%,dry	6.12	6.11	6.13	6.10	6.03
N	%,dry	0.16	0.16	0.05	0.07	0.08
S	%,dry	0.005	0.006	0.004	0.005	0.007
Cd	mg/kg	0.06	0.08	0.07	0.11	0.06
Cr	mg/kg	0.48	1.59	0.36	0.48	0.31
Zn	mg/kg	7.83	0.04	7.55	7.56	8.00
Cu	mg/kg	1.14	2.76	1.02	1.22	1.10
Ni	mg/kg	0.26	0.26	0.24	0.21	0.30
Fe	mg/kg	9.28	8.19	8.79	7.59	29.79
Cl	mg/kg	6.88	5.82	6.85	5.73	7.38
Na	mg/kg	61.52	30.32	15.23	7.78	53.35
Mg	mg/kg	64.42	65.74	62.02	85.43	67.21
Ca	mg/kg	0.57	0.59	0.54	0.62	0.64
K	mg/kg	0.31	0.35	0.35	0.26	0.46
Mg	mg/kg	0.11	0.12	0.13	0.09	0.12
P	mg/kg	0.02	0.03	0.03	0.02	0.03
Moisture content	w-%	5.2	6.6	9.1	8.5	9.7
Ash content	dry-%	0.28	0.30	0.25	0.24	0.37
Diameter	mm	8	8	8	8	8
Length, average	mm	16	14	19	7	14
Length, max.	mm	22	25	37	10	25
Length, min.	mm	10	7	8	4	6
Number of pellets/100g	Pieces	110	120	110	300	140
Durability. Average (Amandu-Kahl)	kp	21	20	21	17	19
Durability, max	kp	21	21	21	21	21
Durability, min.	kp	20	18	20	9	17
Durability, fine dust (ASTM E 1288-89) <2.36 mm	%	1.8	1.1	1.3	1.9	2.6
Bulk density, as received	kg/loose m3	690	680	630	600	560
Basic bulk density, moisture free	kg/loose m3	655	635	575	550	505
Net calorific heating value, dry	MJ/kg	19.0	18.9	19.0	18.8	18.7
Net calorific heating value, dry	MWh/t	5.28	5.26	5.28	5.23	5.20
Net calorific heating value as received	MJ/kg	17.9	17.5	17.0	17.0	16.7
Net calorific heating value as received	MWh/t	4.98	4.87	4.74	4.73	4.63
Energy density	MWh/ loose m³	3.43	3.31	2.98	2.84	2.59
Energy density	GJ/ loose m3	12.3	11.9	10.7	10.2	9.3

Pellet raw materials
- Existing raw materials

These kinds of materials are the byproducts of wood industries. These are- sawdust, cutter chips, wood chips (mainly from spruce and pine). In Sweden, 97 % of the pellets are mostly produced from existing material, while the rest of the pellets are produced from bark and peat. The raw materials used in Sweden in 2005 to make pellets were 50 000 t of bark, 830 000 t fresh sawdust, and 420 000 t dry sawdust. (Selkimaki et al. 2010). In Finland, the main raw materials used in the production of pellet ware cutter chips from pine and spruce. The wet sawdust also used for pellet production after drying by dryers. Vapo Oy is the leading pellet producer in Finland and also produces peat pellets and mixed pellets (Metla 2013).

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