Sawdust Pellet Production Line In South Africa

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overview

This is a 2-2.5 t/h sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project.

A microcosm of the rise of biomass energy in Africa-the construction record of a 2-2.5 t/h wood pellet production line in South Africa
In the global wave of energy transformation, Africa’s pace is slow, but firm and gradually deepening. Especially South Africa, the southernmost country in Africa, is undergoing a profound change in its energy structure.

In recent years, driven by frequent power crises and carbon neutrality pressure, South Africa’s demand for renewable energy has risen sharply, especially the growing demand for clean and sustainable biomass fuels.

In December 2022, a sawdust pellet line with an annual output of about 20,000 tons was officially completed and put into production in a forestry town in eastern South Africa. This complete wood pellet line can stably produce 2 to 2.5 tons of biomass sawdust pellets per hour.

It is an energy transformation project that a local South African forestry processor has landed through in-depth cooperation with RICHI, pellet equipment manufacturers. This page will take this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project as a starting point to present a real case of biomass project implementation, deeply analyze its background, process, equipment and prospects, and strive to provide replicable experience for other regions.

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Project Background: Energy Transformation of Traditional Forestry Enterprises

The investor of this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project is a medium-sized wood processing factory owner in eastern South Africa, who has been engaged in the processing of primary wood products such as log sawn timber and furniture panels for a long time. Due to long-term operation, he has considerable advantages in the acquisition of log resources and the collection of sawdust and wood chip by-products.

However, since 2020, the domestic power supply situation in South Africa has become increasingly tense, and “power rationing” has become the norm, especially in areas with rich forestry resources but weak infrastructure, where industrial operations are frequently hindered. At the same time, the government has introduced policies to encourage the development of renewable energy and support small-scale projects for clean energy supply in rural areas.

It was in this context that the customer came up with the idea of ​​turning the factory’s daily wood chip waste into “waste for treasure”, and then asked us for advice. On July 17, 2022, the customer contacted us for the first time through an online channel and said:

“Hi,
I’m interested in your product RICHI New Energy Biomass Wood Pellet Machine Mill For Wood Sawdust Logs Straw Grass Pellets, I would like some more details.
I look forward for your reply.”

After 5 months of in-depth communication and process confirmation, the two parties officially signed a contract for the entire production line on December 21, 2022, with a transaction amount of US$151,600, and the equipment was shipped and commissioned in the first half of 2023.

The target product of this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project is 6mm diameter standard wood pellets, which are mainly used in heating boilers, biomass fireplaces and applications that replace some industrial coal fuels, with great energy-saving, emission reduction and cost advantages.

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Raw material selection: adapt to local conditions and maximize the use of by-products

South Africa’s timber resources are mainly fast-growing plantations such as pine, eucalyptus, and acacia, distributed in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and Limpopo. The customer is located in a typical forest area with abundant by-product resources such as sawdust, shavings, wood chips, and scraps.

The main raw materials used in the sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project include:

• Clean sawdust (Pine Sawdust): accounts for about 60%, directly from the customer’s own sawmilling process;
• Wood shavings: accounts for about 25%, the raw material density is low, but suitable for granulation;
• Chipped Wood Trim: accounts for 10%, requires pre-crushing;
• Other dry miscellaneous wood residues: accounts for about 5%, which is obtained from the purchase of waste from surrounding small woodworking workshops.

These raw materials are free of bark, sand, and plastic pollution, and the moisture content is controlled within 12%, which is suitable for direct granulation, reducing drying energy consumption and improving granulation efficiency. More importantly, they were originally waste materials, which were converted into high-value-added clean energy through processing, achieving a win-win situation for economy and environmental protection.

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Customized process design: small capacity but not simple

Although the daily processing capacity of this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project is not huge, the overall process design is very particular. We have tailored the following 9 core process flows for our customers:

1. Raw material reception and temporary stacking: Dry raw materials are stacked in the mixing bin by a loader and fed in proportion;
2. Pre-crushing: Larger pieces of scraps are crushed into fragments less than 20mm by a knife crusher;
3. Fine crushing: All raw materials are uniformly fed into a hammer crusher and finally controlled to 3-5mm;
4. Homogeneous mixing: After a variety of raw materials are mixed, they are fed through a spiral feeder to avoid proportional deviation;
5. Pelletizing: The high-efficiency ring die wood pellet mill squeezes the material into 6mm cylindrical particles with a density of 1.2;
6. Cooling system: Hot particles are quickly cooled to room temperature in a countercurrent cooler;
7. Screening section: Screen out overlong particles and dust, and the finished products enter the storage bin;
8. Automatic packaging: The packaging line automatically weighs and packs, supporting 20kg and 25kg bags;
9. Dust removal system: The entire line is equipped with a pulse bag dust removal device to ensure that the production workshop is clean and dust-free.

This sawdust pellet production line in South Africa control system adopts PLC centralized control mode. The operating status, output, temperature, alarm, etc. of core equipment can be monitored in real time through the touch screen, which is convenient for customers to expand capacity or remote management later.

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Equipment Configuration List: Small Investment and High Output

As a complete turnkey sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project, we have equipped customers with a complete set of core equipment with high cost performance and low maintenance rate:

• Crushing equipment (CR600 knife crusher)
• Hammer mill (SFSP56×40)
• Z-type bucket elevator
• Ring die wood pellet press (MZLH350, main engine power 55kW)
• Countercurrent cooler (SKLN14x14)
• Double-layer vibrating screen (SFJH80×2C)
• Automatic weighing and packaging unit (double scale)
• Bag dust removal system
• Electronic control system (PLC+frequency conversion)

The total cost of the sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project is US$151,600, which has achieved a good balance between performance and investment, is easy to maintain in the later stage, and has strong versatility of spare parts. It is especially suitable for business owners who are entering the pellet fuel industry for the first time.

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Product diversification: compatible with multiple types of biomass pellet products

In addition to standard wood chip pellets, the wood pellet processing plant can also produce the following by changing the mold and fine-tuning the pelletizing parameters:

• Rice husk pellets
• Straw fuel pellets (corn stalks, sorghum stalks)
• Herb fuel pellets (elephant grass, alfalfa)
• Light agricultural waste pellets (palm shells, coconut shell powder)
• Livestock and poultry manure mixed pellets (mixed with sawdust within 50%)

The customer has made it clear that after the wood pellet market stabilizes, it will try to cooperate with local dairy farms to recycle dry cow dung and mix sawdust to make biomass fertilizer pellets to create an agricultural ecological closed loop.

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Market prospects: The rigid demand for energy has given birth to the golden age of pellets

In recent years, South Africa’s power supply difficulties have frequently made headlines. The state power company (Eskom) is heavily in debt and its power supply capacity has declined, resulting in frequent power cuts for industrial and residential electricity. Against this background, the clean fuel market has rapidly emerged.

At present, the price of imported wood pellets in South Africa has reached US$220-260 per ton, and the supply of fuel pellets in some cities needs to rely on imports from Namibia and Zambia. After the implementation of this project, the customer can not only provide pellet products to replace coal fuel locally, but also export some surplus products to neighboring countries through ports.

At the policy level, the South African government is promoting the “National Bioenergy Development Strategy” to encourage the development of small energy projects in rural areas. Bank financing policies are also more inclined to clean energy investment, which provides policy dividends for the development of pellet projects.

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Project review and full record of the implementation process

On July 17, 2022, the customer contacted the official website for the first time to inquire about the “RICHI New Energy Biomass Wood Pellet Machine Mill For Wood Sawdust Logs Straw Grass Pellets” product. We completed the reply within 12 hours after receiving the information and provided a preliminary plan and quotation.

After 5 months of repeated communication, our engineers continuously optimized the plan based on the customer’s site layout, raw material conditions, and budget range, and took into account the later product expansion needs in the equipment selection. The purchase contract of this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project was officially signed on December 21, 2022, and the project amount was set at US$151,600.

In March 2023, the sawdust wood pellet manufacturing equipment arrived at the customer’s site, and our engineers were dispatched to install and debug it. The entire installation cycle took only 28 days, and the first batch of mass production was achieved in early May. The customer highly praised the equipment’s operating stability, output and pellet density, and plans to build another 5t/h production line before 2025 to expand production capacity.

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Innovative suggestions based on South Africa’s national conditions

Combining the project with South Africa’s actual situation, we also put forward the following innovative suggestions to customers:

• Develop a rural energy cooperative model: With the pellet plant as the center, unite small farmers to recycle wood chips and agricultural waste raw materials;
• Build a pellet + electric heating integrated system: Provide heating and hot water solutions for pellet boilers in rural areas with power shortages;
• Introduce pellet cooking fuel applications: Replace traditional firewood, apply for carbon emission reduction subsidies and promotion funding from the government;
• Promote pellet export branding: Combine the RSA port transportation system to develop pellet export business in the Indian Ocean market.

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Conclusion: One production line ignites the hope of green economy in a forest area

The success of the 2-2.5t/h wood sawdust fule pellet plant in South Africa is not only the implementation of an energy project, but also the practice and promotion of a resource recycling model. In an era of increasingly scarce resources and increasing environmental pressure, this clean energy solution based on by-product reprocessing is becoming the best example of the integration of forestry, agriculture and energy in Africa.

In the future, we hope that more small, beautiful and practical pellet plants like this sawdust pellet production line in South Africa project can take root in Africa and inject continuous power into the green energy industry.