RICHI MACHINERY has successfully commissioned a 3-ton-per-hour coconut shell pellet production line in the Philippines, marking the company’s entry into the country’s growing biomass sector. The facility, located in Quezon Province, converts coconut processing waste into high-density fuel pellets for industrial and export markets.

Market Background

The Philippines ranks among the world’s largest coconut producers, with shell representing roughly 15 percent of the nut’s weight. Traditionally, these shells have been discarded in plantations or burned in open pits—a practice that releases particulates and contributes to respiratory issues in rural communities.

Pelletizing coconut shells provides an alternative: dense, high-calorific-value fuel suitable for industrial boilers, power plants, and overseas buyers seeking renewable alternatives to coal. The calorific value of coconut shell pellets typically exceeds 4,500 kcal/kg—comparable to low-grade coal but with lower sulfur emissions.

Process Design and Challenges

Coconut shells present specific processing challenges. They are denser than most agricultural residues, harder than wood, and highly abrasive due to silica content. Standard pellet mills designed for straw or grass would experience rapid wear when processing coconut shell.

RICHI engineers addressed these challenges through material selection and component specification. The reinforced pellet mill uses chrome-molybdenum alloys for dies and rollers, with increased wall thickness in wear zones. The crushing stage employs impact rather than shear forces to break the hard shell material efficiently.

The process flow follows: primary crushing reduces whole shells to manageable fragments, hammer milling achieves uniform particle size, rotary drying lowers moisture to optimal levels (below 12 percent), pelletizing compresses the material into dense cylinders, cooling stabilizes the pellets, and screening removes fines before bagging.

Equipment and Configuration

The complete line consists of:

• Coconut shell crusher with heavy-duty rotor and replaceable hammers
• Hammer mill for fine grinding to particle sizes suitable for pelletizing
• Rotary dryer sized to handle initial moisture content that can exceed 20 percent
• MZLH pellet mill with reinforced die and roller assembly
• Counterflow cooler for gentle temperature reduction without pellet cracking
• Screening system for separating on-spec pellets from fines
• Automatic bagging with weigh scale and stitching conveyor

The line consistently achieves pellet moisture below 10 percent, density above 650 kg/m³, and durability sufficient for long-distance transport—requirements specified by the customer’s intended export customers in South Korea and Japan.

Installation and Trial Production

Installation began in November 2025 and concluded in December, with RICHI field engineers working alongside local contractors to complete mechanical assembly and electrical integration. Trial production runs confirmed stable throughput at 3 tons per hour across a range of shell conditions—from freshly processed material to dried stockpiles.

Operators received training on equipment maintenance, with particular attention to die and roller inspection procedures. Coconut shell’s abrasiveness means wear parts require more frequent monitoring than in standard biomass applications, and the training emphasized early identification of wear patterns.

Economic and Environmental Benefits

The plant delivers multiple benefits. It eliminates open burning of shells in surrounding communities, reduces pressure on landfills, and creates rural employment. For the customer, it transforms a waste disposal cost into a revenue-generating product with established demand in Asian energy markets.

The project also demonstrates RICHI’s ability to adapt biomass processing technology to region-specific feedstocks—a capability increasingly important as agricultural processors worldwide seek alternatives to waste disposal.