Wood pellet mill manufactures produce wood pellet mills for several different purposes and end uses. The core market is wood pellet fuel, however wood pellet manufactures also produce wood pellets for animal bedding and even BBQ's. The core product and principle is the same, with a larger range of wood resources used to produce BBQ pellets. Wood pellet manufactures use a wood pellet mill to manufacture the pellets.

Wood Pellet Mill

Through heat and pressure a wood pellet can compress wood residues into pellets. Manufactures have two options of either a flat die pellet mill or a ring die pellet mill. Both designs have advantages and disadvantages which are explained in the guide, see below. All pellet mills have a roller and die configuration. The shape and orientation of the die changes with different designs, and so too does the number and shape of the rollers. Wood pellet mills are under more stress than other pellet mills, due to increased resistance of the wood and higher material density.

Wood Pellet Prices

The prices wood pellet manufactures can charge will depend on the quality of the pellet, and the raw material used in manufacture. Fuel grade wood pellets have to meet specific standards on ash percentage and moisture content, and contaminated wood cannot at any point be used. Animal bedding pellets are less specific, however the fines (dust) percentage has to be low as this is key selling point of the product. BBQ's pellets have to meet the highest standards, as they are a food grade product. Animal bedding pellets therefore have the lowest prices, with fuel and then BBQ wood pellets having the highest prices.

How To Make Wood Pellets

How to make wood pellets is a question that we get asked frequently. The core process relies on a precise relationship between sufficient amounts of heat and pressure to gelatinise the wood and re-shape it into pellet form. The raw material must be relatively dry, and be reduced to a small uniform particle size before pellet compression can take place. Each raw material behaves differently in a pellet mill, and pellet production is often referred to more of an art than a science. To help more people understand the basic processes involved in wood pellet manufacturing, we developed this guide.

Wood Pellet Production Guide

At BiofuelTech we develop small mobile wood pellet mill equipment. We constantly receive emails, asking for more information on the wood pellet production process. Producing pellets on any scale is a skilled process, but even more so on the small scale. To efficiently produce quality pellets constantly, several factors of the process and raw material have to be controlled. To aid general knowledge of the process, we have developed the wood pellet production guide, which breaks the process down into an easy to understand ten step guide.