Biomass Based Animal Bedding Pellet Production Line in Romania

RICHI MACHINERY

What the Client Actually Needed 

The client was not starting from zero. A smaller biomass operation had already established local suppliers and customers, but the existing setup could not support a stable 30,000 T/A bedding business. The new project therefore focuses on throughput, moisture control, dust capture, magnetic protection, mechanical cooling and repeatable packaging.

The product route is animal bedding, not fuel. That changes the release priorities: absorbency, dust, cleanliness, friability after wetting and package stability matter more than achieving a premium fuel-pellet density or the lowest possible ash.

The annual target remains 30,000 T/A. With 250 operating days and two 8-hour shifts, the project needs high utilization, so the pelletizing section is installed at 8–9 T/H rather than being sized exactly to the annual average. This leaves room for die changes, product transitions and short maintenance stops.

The customer also wanted to reuse existing buildings rather than construct a new greenfield plant. That made layout discipline especially important: raw intake, grinding, drying, pelletizing, cooling and packing had to be rearranged into one-direction flow inside the available structures.

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Site Conditions: What We Found in March

The industrial property outside Cluj-Napoca is approximately 11,000 m² and already includes two steel-frame buildings. The project uses the better sections of those buildings rather than treating all existing floor area as mandatory production space.

The 8 m eaves height is sufficient for conveyors, day bins, coolers and the three MZLH678 machines. The dryer and hot-air furnace remain positioned toward an exterior wall so the combustion system, exhaust treatment and fire separation do not consume unnecessary indoor production area.

The main constraints were not building size but process quality: cross-traffic between process areas, grinding dust, insufficient drying capacity for expansion and weak magnetic protection all had to be addressed in the new layout.

The revised site plan keeps raw biomass on the intake side, moves dried material only forward through pelletizing, and places packing near finished-goods storage. This shortens conveying distance and reduces the number of transfer points that create dust.

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Raw Material Realities

The feedstock mix is based on clean wood-processing residues and cereal straw available in Transylvania and surrounding regions. The plant does not accept mixed demolition wood or composite panels merely because they are inexpensive.

At roughly 25% weighted incoming moisture, 37,000 tons of feedstock contains about 27,750 tons of dry matter. Finished bedding at 30,000 T/A and around 10% moisture contains about 27,000 tons of dry matter. The balance covers mineral contamination, screening rejects and unrecoverable handling loss while the dryer and cooling sections remove several thousand tonnes of water.

• Painted, preservative-treated, laminated and composite-board residues are excluded.
• Wood offcuts pass magnetic separation before crushing because nails and staples remain a realistic contamination risk.
• Straw is rejected if it is visibly moldy, soil-heavy or stored wet.
• Sawdust suppliers are tracked separately because species mix and moisture can change die load and absorbency.
• Raw-material moisture is measured by lot and used to determine whether drying is required.

The plant does not assume freshly baled straw routinely arrives at extremely high moisture. Commercial cereal straw is normally purchased dry enough for storage, while badly weathered or wet bales are either reconditioned off-line or rejected.

Feedstock quality is managed for animal-contact use. Cleanliness and odor are therefore just as important as whether a material can physically be pelletized.

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How We Redesigned the Production Flow

The production layout is organized around a straight-through process rather than around where individual machines happen to fit. Raw materials move from receiving through preparation and drying, then into pelletizing, cooling, screening and packing without repeated cross-building transfers.

Building 1 (Production – 4,000m²)

The active production area is divided into receiving/preparation, drying, pelletizing/cooling and packing zones. Crusher and hammer-mill dust collection is separated from dryer exhaust treatment so each system can be sized for its actual air volume and dust characteristics.

Building 2 (Storage – 3,700m²)

Only part of Building 2 is required for the first-stage 30,000 T/A operation. Covered raw materials use about 1,200–1,400 m², finished goods use about 700–900 m², and the rest provides maintenance, aisles, seasonal buffer and future expansion.

This reduces unnecessary stock. Straw and wood residues are supplied on scheduled contracts, while finished bedding is dispatched regularly to distributors and farm customers instead of sitting for weeks in the warehouse.

The dryer furnace is physically separated from bagged bedding storage, and forklift routes do not cross the main pelletizing service aisle. Fire access and maintenance clearance are treated as part of the layout rather than unused leftover floor area.

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Equipment Configuration

The upgraded line uses three correctly sized biomass pellet mills instead of five small parallel units. The MZLH678 configuration provides practical maintenance access, fewer feeders and lower mechanical complexity while still offering redundancy.

The fixed RICHI equipment and controls package is USD 760,000. The completed USD 1.28 million project total also includes electrical upgrading, dryer/furnace civil works, local steelwork, dust-control ducting, fire protection, installation, commissioning and startup spare parts.

Three MZLH678 units provide maintenance flexibility: one unit can be stopped for die or roller service while the remaining two continue production at reduced rate. The plant does not need five separate feeders, five control groups and five small-machine maintenance programs.

The counterflow cooler is retained because bedding product still needs controlled cooling before screening and packing. It is not acceptable to use storage space as the primary cooling system at this capacity.

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Detailed Process Steps

The process is built around clean raw material, controlled moisture and low-dust handling. Wood and straw follow different preparation routes before they join the common bedding blend.

Step 1: Raw Material Receiving and Pre-sorting

Incoming material is identified by supplier and checked for moisture, visible mold, coatings, plastic, metal and excessive soil. Clean sawdust unloads to covered bays; wood trim is separated for crushing; straw bales are kept dry and fed through the straw-preparation route.

Magnetic separators protect the main conveyors before crushing and grinding, while an inline metal detector downstream of grinding provides a second level of protection against metal fragments that magnets may not capture.

Step 2: Crushing

Clean untreated wood offcuts are reduced to manageable chips before fine grinding. Sawdust bypasses the crusher. Straw uses a bale breaker/cutter rather than the wood crusher so long fibers do not wrap around the feed system.

Step 3: Hammer Milling

Two hammer mills reduce prepared material to a few-millimeter fiber size suitable for bedding pellet production. Screen selection is adjusted by feedstock campaign. Bedding does not require an ultra-fine powder, but the particle distribution must remain consistent enough for stable ring-die feeding.

Grinding aspiration uses cyclone and bag-filter separation. Filtered return air is handled only where the applicable workplace-air and fire-risk assessment allows it; the plant does not rely on one invented dust number as proof that recirculation is always acceptable.

Step 4: Drying and Cooling

Material above the pelletizing moisture window enters the rotary dryer heated by a biomass hot-air furnace. Dry straw and dry sawdust can bypass part of this stage. Dryer throughput is controlled from incoming moisture and actual water-removal demand rather than from one fixed wet-tonnage figure.

The normal target before pelletizing is approximately 10–14% moisture, depending on blend and bedding specification. Dryer discharge is buffered and allowed to equalize before it reaches the pellet mills.

Step 5: Pelletizing

Three MZLH678 pellet mills receive dried prepared material through individual feeders. Each 200 kW unit is from the biomass pellet-machine series and is commissioned against the actual wood/straw blend, target diameter and desired bedding friability.

The standard bedding product is 6–8 mm diameter. Die compression, roller gap and feeder speed are tuned from motor load, pellet appearance, durability and absorbency rather than fixed to one universal RPM, gap or die-life figure.

The project does not describe lignin as the only binding mechanism. Fiber structure, moisture, temperature and wood-to-straw ratio all influence pellet formation, and some bedding recipes may require different tooling even when no external binder is added.

Step 6: Cooling and Screening

Fresh pellets enter a counterflow cooler and are brought close to ambient temperature before screening. The screener removes loose fines and abnormally long pieces; clean fines return to a controlled subsequent batch.

Finished bedding is checked for moisture, diameter, length, loose dust and a defined absorbency/breakdown method. The product is designed to remain intact through packaging but break down appropriately when used in stalls or livestock housing.

Step 7: Packaging and Storage

The main commercial packs are 25 kg and 50 kg, with larger FIBC available for farm or distributor orders. Bags are weighed, closed, coded and palletized before entering the finished-goods zone.

Finished stock is kept dry and rotated quickly because bedding pellets readily absorb ambient moisture. The warehouse is sized for short commercial inventory rather than long-term seasonal storage.

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Utility Consumption

Electricity is the main purchased utility, while the dryer furnace uses clean biomass residue or a controlled share of off-spec bedding pellets. Utility figures are based on the 30,000 T/A operating plan rather than on nominal motor power multiplied by every scheduled hour.

The plant normally operates 4,000 production hours per year. Crusher and dryer operating time varies with feedstock condition, while pelletizing follows the two-shift schedule more closely.

A workforce of about 18–24 people is appropriate for two shifts, covering receiving, preparation, dryer/furnace operation, pelletizing, packing, warehouse, maintenance, QC and supervision.

Energy performance is reviewed per finished tonne. A rise in hammer-mill electricity can indicate blunt hammers or excess moisture; a rise in pellet-mill kWh/t can indicate die wear, poor moisture control or an unfavorable straw ratio.

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Environmental Compliance 

The project is developed under Romania’s national environmental-permitting framework and applicable EU law. Project screening and environmental-impact requirements are handled under Law 292/2018, while the operating environmental authorization follows the national authorization procedure administered through the competent environmental authority.

The biomass-fired dryer furnace is assessed separately as a combustion source. If its rated thermal input falls within the medium-combustion-plant range of at least 1 MW and below 50 MW, Romania’s Law 188/2018 and the EU Medium Combustion Plant Directive framework apply to pollutants such as SO2, NOx and particulate matter.

Romania’s Ministry of Environment lists Law 278/2013 for industrial emissions and Law 188/2018 for medium combustion plants within the current industrial-emissions framework. The project therefore does not publish stack test results or one generic Cluj permit limit without the actual permit and furnace rating.

The bedding product itself is not treated as an environmental permit substitute. Supplier traceability, treated-wood exclusion, dust control and waste records remain part of the operating management system.

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What Went Wrong During Startup

Commissioning focuses on predictable process interfaces in a mixed wood/straw bedding line: raw-material moisture, metal control, dryer response and pellet-mill load balance.

The plant commissions wood-rich bedding first, then increases straw content in controlled campaigns. This gives operators a stable baseline for moisture, die load and cooling before more variable agricultural fiber is introduced.

Critical spares include MZLH dies, rollers, hammer-mill screens, bearings and belts. Planned maintenance is scheduled by operating hours and condition rather than by a fixed promise of several thousand tonnes per die.

The customer also maintains retained samples from each finished batch so dust, moisture and absorbency complaints can be traced back to the corresponding raw-material lot.

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Why Bedding Pellets? (Market Context in Romania)

Romania has a substantial livestock sector, including one of the EU’s largest sheep populations and a meaningful bovine sector. Eurostat’s 2024 data place Romania among the larger livestock-producing member states, which supports a broad agricultural market for bedding materials even though bedding choice varies widely by farm type.

Horse stables remain an important premium customer segment, but the project does not rely on an unverified national horse-population claim. Commercial sales are built from actual stable, dairy, poultry and distributor accounts in Romania and neighboring Central European markets.

Pellets are not automatically cheaper than loose straw or sawdust. Their commercial value is higher bulk density, easier bagged distribution, predictable moisture, cleaner storage and controlled product quality.

The project also avoids unsupported fixed selling prices and margin comparisons between bedding and fuel pellets. Romania, Hungary and Austria have changing raw-material, freight and retail prices, so the business case is based on actual customer contracts and distributor terms.

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What We Learned

Moisture management remains the first design priority. A dryer should be sized from peak water removal, but procurement rules are equally important: paying to evaporate avoidable water from low-value residues can destroy margin.

Metal control should combine magnets with downstream detection where clean wood offcuts remain part of the feedstock. Magnets are excellent for ferrous contamination but they should not be treated as the only barrier against all foreign metal.

Parallel pellet mills work best when feed is balanced automatically. Three MZLH678 units are easier to manage than five small machines, but each feeder still needs stable distribution and motor-load monitoring.

Environmental permitting should be based on the actual furnace thermal rating and project category. Romania’s national rules implement EU requirements, while the final permit can impose site-specific monitoring and operating conditions.

Finally, bedding must be evaluated as bedding. Absorbency, dust, cleanliness, friability and farm handling matter more to the buyer than fuel-pellet density or a headline calorific value.

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Would We Do This Project Again?

Yes—this project type is technically sound when the customer has a stable supply of clean wood fiber, access to dry cereal straw and an established agricultural sales channel. The 30,000 T/A scale is large enough to justify mechanical drying, three MZLH678 mills and automated cooling/packing without becoming an oversized export-only factory.

The two existing steel buildings are also an advantage because the project can expand within an industrial property without buying a large new greenfield site. The active operating footprint remains around 6,500 m² even though the overall property is larger.

The main commercial condition is product differentiation. The customer needs to sell a clean bedding grade with measured absorbency and low loose dust—not simply a biomass pellet in a different bag.

Future expansion should first use higher operating hours or add packaging/storage capacity if sales require it. A second pelletizing module should only be considered after feedstock and contracted demand justify the additional throughput.

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Thinking About a Similar Project?

A bedding-pellet proposal should begin with actual raw-material samples and customer requirements. Moisture, fiber type, coatings, soil contamination and seasonal storage determine the process far more than a catalogue capacity number.

For a 30,000 T/A project, the customer should confirm monthly feedstock availability, realistic wet-season moisture, electrical-service capacity, building dimensions and the target animal sectors before equipment is finalized.

The Romanian biomass pellet project uses a larger electrical service, thermal dryer and three MZLH678 units because its raw materials and annual output justify them. A smaller horse-bedding plant would not need the same configuration.

Equipment can be shipped from Qingdao to Constanța Port and then moved inland by road or rail to Cluj County. Constanța is Romania’s principal Black Sea gateway and serves Central and Eastern European cargo flows.

A project of this scale should normally be planned over roughly 6–9 months from final engineering through commissioning, depending on building modification, electrical work, environmental permitting and local contractor readiness.

RICHI MACHINERY

Ready to Talk?

For a bedding-pellet project, the most useful starting information is raw-material type, monthly volume, moisture range, source distance, animal applications, required pack sizes, building dimensions and available power.

• Separate sawdust, wood offcuts and straw in the raw-material data.
• Identify which materials need drying and which can bypass the dryer.
• Define bedding diameter, moisture, loose-dust and absorbency targets.
• Confirm whether sales are retail bags, farm bulk bags or distributor pallets.
• Provide the actual site ceiling height, floor loading and electrical capacity.
• Separate machinery budget from civil works, utility upgrades and working capital.

RICHI configures the Biomass pellet production line around those inputs. The same engineering basis can also be adapted to a biomass pellet plant or wood pellet production line when the end product and feedstock are different.

RICHI scope covers process engineering, equipment manufacture, factory inspection, export packing, installation guidance, commissioning and operator training. The goal is to match the plant to the real bedding market rather than force every project into the same equipment list.

Additional project references include biomass pellet mill.