- Categories: Finished products
Fuel briquettes are an environmentally friendly, renewable energy wood-based fuel that replaces hydrocarbon raw materials. Wood briquettes are used for heating private houses, industrial premises, warehouses, boiler houses, summer houses, greenhouses with the help of boilers and solid fuel furnaces.
Fuel briquettes are made of woodworking waste: shavings, sawdust, strips, and unused parts of wood produced during logging – thinners, trim pieces, tops, curved trunks, branches, etc. At the same time, wood waste previously burned in a plot or disposed of in a landfill now becomes an independent commodity.
Production
Fuel briquettes are produced by pressing crushed woodworking waste (sawdust) under high pressure. The binding element in this process is a natural polymer “lignin”, which is contained in the cells of the wood itself. Lignin is emitted during heating and pressing, softened and glued wood particles into a dense cylinder. Artificial binding agents are not used in the production process.
Advantages
The combustion temperature of fuel briquettes is 1.5-2 times higher than that of firewood. Briquettes provide a constant temperature throughout the burning process. Wood briquettes can be laid three times less than firewood. Fuel briquettes burn long and evenly.
The thermal efficiency of a coal-fired boiler house is 75%, while that of a solid biofuel boiler house exceeds 85%. A jump in the quality of the boiler house performance is achieved by reducing the non-combustible part of the fuel (slag and ash), as well as reducing by one third the moisture content of the fuel, which is 18% for coal and 5% for solid biofuel.
Solid biofuel has the same calorific value as D coal, which is mainly used for combustion in boiler-houses.
Comparison of calorific values:
- wood (solid mass, wet) – 2450 kcal/kg
- wood (solid mass, dry) – 2930 kcal/kg
- brown coal – 3910 kcal/kg
- Briquettes – 4600 kcal/kg
The use of fuel briquettes is economically advantageous: 1 ton of briquettes is equal to 6 m3 of firewood (3.5 tons), 500 m3 of gas, 5200 kWh of electricity. The cost is 30-40% less than firewood and coal, depending on the area of the room.
- At combustion the minimum amount of ash is formed, less soot and carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere
The combustion of coal in the calorific value of 1 GJ produces 60 kg of carbon dioxide into the environment, while the combustion of briquettes does not produce carbon dioxide. Average ash content of coal is at the level of 18% of the volume, while ash content of briquettes is only 3%, i.e. six times less. Minimization of fuel ash content allows minimizing the costs associated with the removal of slag (ash) and their storage, reducing the territory of pollution, as well as reducing the load on the filters of boiler-houses that capture the ash emitted with flue gases. In addition, the percentage of fly ash emissions is also reduced, which improves the environmental situation in the places of heat production.
Comparison of fuel briquettes with other fuels in terms of ash content:
- black coal – 20% ash
- brown coal – 40% ash
- briquettes – from 0.12% to 1% ashes
Fuel briquettes are convenient and compact to transport, store and use, without contaminating the storage area.
Storage of coal is carried out by bulk volume (heap) that forces to allocate for its storage considerable areas while storage of briquettes is carried out on pallets (on pallets) of the cubic form with the party 1,5 m. Pallets can be placed on top of each other for long-term storage. It is recommended to install 2-3 pallets on top of each other, which actually reduces the area occupied by coal by at least 2 (two) to 3 (three) times.
The appearance of solid biofuel is also its advantage and directly affects the aesthetics of both the storage area and the process of use.