The installation sits in Chiang Rai province, near the Myanmar border, where bamboo grows on hillsides that are too steep for rice paddies. The plant owner had been selling raw poles to construction and furniture makers, but the residues—tops, branches, processing waste—accumulated in piles that occasionally caught fire during the dry season.

Market Background

Thailand’s bamboo resource is substantial but underutilized. The country has millions of hectares of bamboo forest, both natural and planted, generating continuous biomass as stands are harvested on rotation. Most of it goes to low-value uses or simply decomposes.

Pelletizing changes the economics. Bamboo pellets burn hot—calorific value around 4,500 kcal/kg, comparable to wood—with low ash and minimal sulfur. Industrial users in Thailand and neighboring countries will buy all that can be produced, at prices that justify processing.

Raw Material and Process Design

Bamboo’s structure presents challenges. The stems are hollow, with dense nodes and fibrous walls. The silica content, absorbed from soil during growth, accelerates wear on cutting surfaces. And the moisture distribution is uneven—green bamboo can exceed 50 percent moisture in the stems while leaves are much drier.

The process must handle all of it. Pre-chopping reduces whole stems to manageable pieces. Hammer milling further reduces particle size while knocking loose the silica that would otherwise embed in pellet dies. Drying brings moisture below 12 percent regardless of starting point. Then pelletizing compresses the fiber into dense cylinders.

Equipment Configuration

The Chiang Rai line comprises:

• Bamboo pre-chopper and conveyor system with heavy-duty knives
• Hammer mill with screens sized for bamboo fiber
• Rotary dryer with thermal efficiency optimized for biomass
• MZLH series bamboo pellet machine with wear-resistant die materials
• Counterflow cooler for pellet stabilization
• Screening system for fines removal
• Bagging and palletizing unit for finished product

The pellet mill uses chrome-molybdenum dies with increased wall thickness in wear zones. Rollers are surfaced with tungsten carbide for extended life. Even with these measures, the operator expects to replace dies every 800 to 1,000 hours—shorter intervals than for wood, but acceptable given the feedstock cost.

Installation and Commissioning

Mechanical installation finished in January, ahead of the dry season when construction access is easiest. Electrical integration continues, with commissioning scheduled for March. The customer plans initial operation at 5 tons per hour, ramping to full capacity as the supply chain stabilizes.

Environmental and Economic Benefits

For the plant owner, the line converts a waste disposal problem into a revenue stream. For local bamboo growers, it creates a market for material that previously had no value. For Thailand’s renewable energy targets, it supplies fuel that displaces imported coal.

RICHI’s role in the biomass pellet project demonstrates the company’s ability to engineer for difficult feedstocks—the kind that competitors avoid because the processing challenges are non-standard.