1 T/H Wood Pellet Line in South Korea

RICHI MACHINERY

The Business Case Came From Floor Space Not Fuel Prices

The inquiry arrived in January 2024 after waste accumulation had become an operating problem inside the furniture workshop.

The Gyeonggi customer produces furniture components and generates clean wood scraps every day. The material is untreated and generally dry enough for indoor storage, but piece size and density change with the production schedule.

Before the pellet project, those residues followed three low-value routes:

• Temporary indoor storage that consumed useful workshop space
• Low-value sale to local residue collectors
• Off-site removal when stock exceeded the workshop’s storage capacity

The turning point was not a speculative export order. The customer wanted a stable local outlet for clean wood waste and a denser product that used far less storage volume than loose offcuts.

The project question became:

“Can this clean workshop waste support a small pellet business without rebuilding the factory?”

After about six weeks of material and layout review, the answer was a 1 T/H small wood pellet plant in South Korea centered on one MZLH420 press and a horizontal process route that fit the existing building.

The equipment and engineering contract was signed in March 2024.

RICHI MACHINERY

The Customer Needed a Line Not Just a Pellet Mill

The first request was only for a pellet machine, not a complete wood pellet production line. The final project functions as a compact wood pellet production line in South Korea because the supporting size-reduction, cooling and packing steps are included. Reviewing the actual waste stream showed why that would not be enough.

Three operating conditions had to be checked first:

• How irregular furniture offcuts would enter the line without bridging or overloading the hammer mill
• How the existing moderate-height workshop could accommodate conveying without a tall tower
• Whether daily residue generation was sufficient for the 2,500 T/Y production target

A standalone press would have left crushing, grinding, dust control, hot-pellet cooling and packing unresolved. The final system therefore includes those supporting duties around the MZLH420.

The completed design brief was:

• Process roughly 8 tons/day on a normal workshop schedule, with production adjusted when residue generation changes
• Keep controls and maintenance simple enough for operators new to biomass pelleting
• Use the existing factory without major structural reconstruction
• Produce consistent 8 mm fuel pellets for local industrial and heating customers

RICHI MACHINERY

Moderate Building Height Forced a Horizontal Layout

The available property and building areas were fixed before equipment selection:

• Total land area: 1,989.5 m²
• Production workshop: 1,529.5 m²
• Raw material area: 400 m² of indoor stacking and short-term production buffer
• Office building: 70 m² over two floors

The main constraint was vertical clearance.
The building could accept compact elevators and conveyors, but not the tall gravity tower common in larger pellet factories.

The wood fuel pellet plant therefore uses a mostly horizontal process:

Raw material → Crushing → Grinding → Pelletizing → Cooling/Screening → Storage → Packing

The route keeps residue moving in one direction and lets forklifts serve raw material and finished product without repeatedly crossing the process line.

RICHI MACHINERY

2,500 T/Y Requires Just Over One Ton per Hour

The factory is intentionally a single-product line:

The required annual average is about 1.04 T/H. That is slightly above a simple “1.0 T/H” label but remains inside the MZLH420 operating range of approximately 1.0–1.2 T/H. The project therefore keeps the widely understood 1 T/H market classification without pretending that the press is limited to exactly 1,000 kg every hour.

RICHI MACHINERY

Dry Furniture Offcuts Eliminate the Need for a Dryer

The project uses residue from furniture-component production in Gyeonggi. The valuable characteristic is not simply that it is “wood”; it is clean, untreated and stored indoors, so the line does not need to process green logs or high-moisture sawmill sludge. That upstream control is what allows a small line to omit a dryer without creating a hidden quality problem. If the workshop later begins receiving outside sawdust or demolition timber, moisture and contamination would have to be re-qualified before those materials could share the same process.

This biomass pellet project accepts only untreated wood waste. Painted, laminated, plastic-coated or chemically preserved pieces stay outside the fuel stream.

Annual Feedstock Basis

A practical note:
Density and piece geometry still vary even when the material is clean and dry. Operators adjust feeder rate and pre-crushing duty so denser batches do not overload the hammer mill or pellet press. The 2,500 T/Y raw-material figure is an operating procurement basis; rejected pieces and inventory carryover are managed separately from saleable output.

RICHI MACHINERY

Electricity Is the Main Process Utility

No steam conditioner or thermal dryer is installed, so there is no normal industrial wastewater stream from production. Electricity is concentrated in the 90 kW pellet mill, chipper, hammer mill and auxiliary systems; this makes incoming material moisture a feedstock specification rather than something the plant can correct with heat.

RICHI MACHINERY

MZLH420 Matches the Annual Capacity Without Oversizing

The wood pellet processing equipment is intentionally compact. The project does not need multiple presses or a large automation package, but the main biomass pellet mill still has to cover the 1.04 T/H annual average with enough operating margin for density changes.

Core Equipment List

This configuration keeps investment proportional to the available residue volume.
Planned maintenance still stops the pellet press itself, but prepared material can be buffered so the entire workshop does not need to stop at the same moment.

RICHI MACHINERY

Four Steps Keep the Small Line Easy to Operate

The process is short because the feedstock is already dry enough for a no-dryer route. Each step is included only when it protects pellet quality or stable operation.

1. Coarse Size Reduction

Large offcuts are reduced before fine grinding so irregular furniture pieces do not enter the hammer mill intact.

• Dust is captured at the chipper and transfer points rather than allowed to accumulate around the workshop
• Centralized extraction keeps the low-height horizontal layout easier to clean and inspect

2. Fine Grinding

Prepared pieces are reduced to a consistent sawdust fraction before they enter the MZLH420.

• Particle size is checked because oversize fibres reduce pellet strength and can destabilize feeding
• Material that is too coarse increases die-load variation
• Excessive fine grinding wastes electricity and can increase dust without improving pellet quality

3. Pelleting Cooling and Screening

The MZLH420 is the capacity-setting machine, but feed rate and die condition are adjusted to the actual density of each batch.

• Compression is generated mechanically in the ring die; operators monitor motor load instead of relying on one nominal pressure figure
• Friction raises material temperature naturally during pelleting, so hot pellets must be cooled before storage

No steam conditioning is used. A compact cooling and screening stage follows the press so fines can be recycled and pellets enter storage near a stable temperature.

4. Storage and Packing by Order

Cooled 8 mm pellets are held in the finished-product area and packed according to confirmed local orders rather than being sent hot directly into bags.

The first-stage project uses a manual and semi-automatic packing approach. That keeps the small line economical while leaving a clear upgrade path if bag volume or retail sales increase later.

RICHI MACHINERY

Environmental Control Is Mostly About Dust and Noise

Because the plant has no thermal dryer or boiler, its routine environmental controls focus on dry wood dust, equipment noise, housekeeping and domestic wastewater rather than combustion exhaust.

This wood pellet plant construction project includes:

• Dust control: centralized bag filtration with a 15 m treated-air exhaust
• Wastewater: domestic and cleaning water managed through the site sanitation system
• Solid waste: clean recoverable fines returned to production where quality allows
• Noise: equipment foundations, enclosure and layout separation used to limit vibration and boundary noise

RICHI MACHINERY

Ten People Are Enough for a One-Shift Workshop Line

Operators received about one week of startup training covering material inspection, safe feeding, MZLH420 loading, die and roller checks, dust-system inspection and basic fault response before independent operation.

RICHI MACHINERY

US$70,000 Fixed Investment Keeps the Project Proportional

The customer reused the existing building, so most of the investment could be directed to production equipment, electrical interfaces, dust control, installation and startup rather than new civil construction. The US$40,000 equipment package should therefore not be read as the cost of a complete greenfield 1 T/H pellet factory. The US$70,000 fixed project total is the more useful completed-project reference because it includes the local work needed to turn an operating furniture workshop into a safe pellet-production area.

• Equipment cost: approx. US$40,000
• Total investment: around US$70,000

The project is evaluated as a small internal-residue conversion investment. Its economics depend on avoided disposal cost, actual pellet sales, electricity and labor; the page does not assume a fixed payback simply because the equipment package is small.

RICHI MACHINERY

Qingdao to Busan Keeps International Logistics Short

• Loading port: Qingdao Port, China
• Destination port: Busan Port, South Korea

Typical sea transit for this route is about 7–10 days, subject to the sailing schedule and port handling.

Installation began after inland delivery and site electrical preparation, with the compact equipment count allowing a shorter mechanical setup than larger multi-line biomass projects.

RICHI MACHINERY

The Best Market for This Line Is Local and Contracted

This small biomass pellet plant in South Korea is aimed at customers that can use modest, regular volumes rather than at export-scale power generation:

• Local commercial and small heating systems with compatible pellet appliances
• Industrial boilers that can accept the project’s 8 mm clean-wood fuel specification
• Regional energy users that value short-haul supply from a nearby woodworking residue source

A 1 T/H wood pellet processing plant in South Korea is too small to build its business around bulk export cargoes.
Its advantage is short supply chains: the raw material already exists at the customer’s factory and finished pellets can move to regional users.

Demand should be confirmed through actual buyers rather than described as universally “stable.” The practical sales plan is based on the customer’s local heating and industrial contacts and the limited annual output of about 2,500 tons. At this scale, customer concentration matters more than national market size: a few regular boiler or heating users can absorb a meaningful share of annual production, while losing one account can leave finished pellets occupying the small warehouse. Sales scheduling and bag format are therefore part of production planning.

The project deliberately avoids unnecessary scale.

• Clean untreated raw material already comes from the owner’s own furniture operation
• The existing building already provides the space needed for a horizontal line
• One MZLH420 matches the annual residue volume without creating excess unused pellet capacity

That combination makes the wood waste pellet plant in South Korea practical even though it is small: feedstock, equipment and sales volume are all kept within the same scale.

RICHI MACHINERY

Small Pellet Projects Should Be Sized From Daily Residue

A small line performs well when it is attached to a real waste stream rather than built around a theoretical pellet market.

The advantage is not lower technology; it is tighter matching between feedstock, building, operating hours and buyer volume.

This 1 T/H wood pellet line in South Korea is a good example: one MZLH420 covers the required average output, while the existing furniture workshop supplies the clean dry feedstock.

The equipment list should therefore come after the production assumptions are checked.

The first questions are:

• How many tons of clean untreated residue are genuinely available each month?
• Is the moisture consistently low enough to avoid installing a dryer?
• How many production hours are available without interfering with the main furniture business?

Once those inputs are fixed, selecting the right small wood pellet plant becomes much easier. For a similar furniture waste pellet line in South Korea, send the monthly residue volume, moisture, largest piece size, building height and target bag format before the final MZLH configuration is chosen.