Turn waste into valuewith briquetting press machines

Consumer wood briquettes are the ideal products for replacing traditional firewood. Since the end of the 90’s, the demand for consumer wood briquettes used for home heating systems, fireplaces and wood burning stoves have increased. Driven by the global focus on renewable energy, this demand is still growing. Compared to alternatives, briquettes are both convenient, profitable and sustainable.

With our briquetting machines, your waste will be turned into valuable renewable energy. In collaboration with our sister company RUF Briquetting System, we offer a wide range of customized solutions and a full line of consumer briquetting machines varying from low to very high capacities.

At C.F. Nielsen, we have specialized in mechanical briquetting. We offer high capacity lines ranging from 4-500 kg/hour and upwards, corresponding to wood waste of approximately 1.000 tonnes per year and more.

Testing of your raw material is essential, as raw material, even if it is the same species, varies from country to country and from customer to customer.
By testing your actual raw material many potential difficulties will be avoided during start-up and production at your new briquetting plant.

Costs should not be the only factor to be considered, when evaluating a briquetting plant. For newcomers in the business of biomass, production might not seem complicated. Never the less, it is our experience that two customers with similar raw material can have a very different success rate in terms of profitability.

The calorific value of a fuel expresses the amount of energy released during the complete combustion of a mass unit of a fuel.

The moisture content of wood changes the calorific value of the latter by lowering it. Part of the energy released during the combustion process is spent in water evaporation and is consequently not available for any wished-for thermal use.

Raw material is the residue you are looking to use in your briquetting production. It is typically unprocessed material from either from wood or agricultural by-products. Examples such as straw, pineapple waste, sugarcane bagasse, birch, larch etc. can be used for briquetting.

But not all raw materials can be used, as the characteristics of the material changes depending on which type you have.

Many factors are influencing the price of a briquetting plant. Here are some of the most important ones:

Moisture level – Dry (below 14%) or wet (above 15%)?

• If your raw material is wet and you cannot dry it in a natural way (in the sun or leaving it long time to dry) you will have to invest in a dryer, which can be a high investment, especially if you require a high degree of automation.

The calorific or heating value is an important indicator of the quality of the pressed fuel briquettes. It measures the energy content of the briquettes. It is defined as the amount of heat evolved when a pressed fuel briquette is completely burnt and the combustion products are cooled. And the Gross Calorific Value, shortened as GCV, refers to the calorific value with the condensation of water in the latent heat, also known as higher heating value. Whereas during combustion, the heat of condensation of water contained in the fuel and formed during combustion will become unavailable because of the vaporization of the water. And then, the useful heating value is gained after the heat of condensation of the water being subtracted from the gross calorific value, which is referred to as the Net Heating Value or lower heating value.

Rice husk is residue from processing of rice grains. It is good for making briquettes because rice husk has the optimal moisture content of 8 and 12 % and granulation is also perfect 10x5x2 mm.

Because of those characteristics there is no need for further preparation such as grinding of drying.

Due to low level of lignin, it is not possible to make briquettes in bigger diameter than 75 mm without adding any binder. Although rice husks are perfect for briquetting, they also contain a high silica content, resulting in a high ash content. Briquettes from rice husk are most often used in boilers or furnaces with very high burning temperature to avoid a low silica melting point and sintering (crystallization) of ash.

Biomass briquettes are a biofuel substitute to coal and charcoal. Briquettes are mostly used in the developing world, where cooking fuels are not as easily available. There has been a move to use briquettes in the developed world, where they are used to heat industrial boilers in order to produce electricity from steam. The briquettes are co-fired with coal in order to create the heat supplied to the boiler.

C.F. Nielsen has the ability to make many different shapes, types and forms of briquettes, which is adapted to the specific market inquiries from the different countries.

In most countries, customers prefer to have regular round (cylindrical) briquettes in Ø75 or Ø90 mm. This is our “standard” briquette shape and for most markets, these sizes work perfectly well. Whether or not our customers prefer our Ø75 or Ø90mm, depends very much on the traditional fuel that has been used for domestic heat. As an example in Ireland, peat briquettes have always been very popular and these have been burned in relatively small woodstoves. As a consequence most customers ask for the smaller Ø75mm briquette in Ireland.