[Tripathi] Creating biomass pellets is a great way to densify biomass for later use,
but if you'd like to create a strong durable pellet that transports well,
you will need to consider the moisture content of your feedstock.
If the moisture content is too low, pellets are not produced-- powder simply pours out of the dye.
If the moisture content is too high, the pellets produced are not durable.
So, it is necessary to bring the moisture content of feedstock to its optimum level. But, first,
you need to determine the original moisture content of your feedstock.
In this video, I'll be showing you how to estimate the moisture content of your feedstock
and how to adjust it to the desired level.
This video will show you two ways to determine the moisture content of the feedstock. You can use a
moisture meter like this for quicker estimation of the moisture content of the feedstock.
This is a pin-type moisture meter. To take the readings with the moisture meter,
press these pins against the handful of biomass. Be sure to squeeze the
biomass as tight as possible when taking your readings. These moisture meters are convenient
and can be used for quicker estimation, but they don't give 100% accurate results.
The oven drying process accurately measures the moisture content.
To do this you will need an oven, weighing scale, and an aluminium tray.
Set the oven to about 105 degrees Celsius or to about 220 degrees Fahrenheit.
Weigh an empty container and record its scale reading as "W1" which is 8.04 gram, in this case.
Then, put some biomass in the container and record its
scale reading as "W2" which is 20.35 gram, in this case.
Place the container with the sample inside the oven for about 24 hours.
After 24 hours, take out the container with the sample from the oven.
After letting it cool down for few seconds, take its weight,
and record its scale reading as "W3" which is 19.24 grams, in our case.
Now using the formula, as shown, let's calculate the moisture content.
Here, "W2" is 20.35 grams which is our sample plus container weight before drying, minus
"W3" which is 19.24 grams, and this is our sample plus container weight after drying, divided by
"W2" which is, again, 20.35 grams,
minus "W1" which is 8.04 grams and this is the weight of our empty container, times 100.
This calculation shows that the current or actual moisture content is about 9%. I had said in the
beginning, biomass needs to be at optimal moisture content for the pellets to turn out durable.
Most recommendations state that feedstock moisture content should be in the range of 12% to 15%.
So, if we want to increase the moisture content to 12$ for the pelletization process
we can do that by spraying and mixing water on the biomass. But for that,
we first need to know how much water to add, and we can easily do that by using this formula.
The amount of water to add depends upon how much biomass we have, target moisture content, and
actual moisture content. Target moisture content in this demonstration is 12%, actual moisture
content is 9%, and the amount of the biomass which moisture content we want to change is 397.7 grams.
Now, let's walk through the math.
We find that we have to add 13.6 grams of water to the biomass, which means the final
weight of the batch of the biomass after adding water should be about 411 grams.
So, let's keep on spraying the water onto our batch of the biomass
until the final weight is close to 411 grams.
Once we add the required amount of water, mix it well to evenly distribute the water throughout.
Now the biomass is ready for the pelletization process.
There is a link to the online calculator in the description of this video that will do
the calculations for determining the moisture content of your feedstock,
and this tool can also calculate how much water to add
if necessary to bring your feedstock to the desired moisture content.