15–16 T/H Wood Bedding Pellet Production Line in Brazil

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The Project Started With a Storage Problem

The first inquiry arrived in March 2024 after the customer had already spent several seasons handling loose wood and crop residues. The commercial problem was not a lack of biomass. It was volume. Branches, offcuts, sawdust and straw occupied too much space, created dust during handling and became expensive to move once transport distance increased.

“We have wood waste and straw. Can it be pelletized for animal bedding without drying?”

That question led to a different answer from a conventional fuel-pellet project: some material should be pelletized, but not all of it. The customer already had buyers who could use crushed wood bedding, while other poultry, horse and livestock customers preferred a denser product with lower dust and easier storage. A dual-output plant matched the market better than a single-product factory.

The client operates a medium-scale agricultural and forestry business in southern Brazil and sources several clean residue streams within a practical trucking radius:

• Clean wood offcuts and blocky residues from local sawmills and wood-processing workshops
• Seasoned branches and forestry residues that have already lost most free moisture before delivery
• Seasonal cereal and crop straw used at a controlled ratio in the bedding mix

The business case rested on two physical problems rather than on a speculative pellet price:

1. Loose residues occupied too much warehouse and truck volume before they reached the customer
2. Fine sawdust and untreated crushed fiber generated more airborne dust during bedding handling than a conditioned pellet product

The customer did not begin by asking for a complete wood pellet line. The final concept appeared only after raw-material trials showed which fractions could be sold after shredding and which fractions benefited from finer grinding and pelleting. That decision is the main reason this Brazil wood bedding pellet plant has a larger front end than its pellet section.

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Seven Months From Material Tests to Delivery

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Bedding Performance Changed the Pellet Settings

This is not a fuel pellet plant. The pellets are designed for bedding performance, so die selection and compression are judged by absorbency, dust level, mechanical handling and the ability to break down after use rather than by maximum bulk density or calorific value.

That distinction affects both the product specification and the way the eight pellet mills are operated.

The bedding product is set around four practical requirements:

• 6–10 mm diameter options for poultry, horse and general livestock bedding customers
• Moderate compression so the pellet remains durable in transport without becoming unnecessarily hard
• High water uptake after use, supported by clean wood fiber and controlled final moisture
• Low dust and low fines are prioritized over fuel value because the product is used around animals

The standard finished specification is:

• Diameter: 6–10 mm
• Length: 10–20 mm

Trial production showed why bedding needs its own die settings. Higher compression produced a hard, fuel-like pellet with poorer breakup and absorbency, while insufficient compression increased fines. The final operating window uses a lower die compression demand than fuel pellets and controls feed moisture before each production campaign. Pellet mills assigned to 6 mm and 8–10 mm products can therefore run different dies without changing the entire front-end preparation system.

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80,200 Tons of Residue Feed Two Product Routes

The raw-material mix changes with forestry work and seasonal crop availability, so the plant is managed by material condition rather than a fixed monthly recipe. Waste wood and branches dominate the annual volume; sawdust supports pellet formation; smaller amounts of forestry fines and straw broaden the bedding mix when moisture and contamination are acceptable.

Most supply comes from within roughly 50–80 km. That sourcing pattern lets the sawdust bedding pellet plant in Brazil combine fine sawdust with larger clean wood residues without depending on long-haul feedstock. Only clean, untreated biomass is accepted. Green wood is not sent directly to pelleting: branches and offcuts are seasoned or air-dried before delivery, then stored under cover. Material entering the pellet route is normally held around 10–13% moisture. Wetter lots are segregated for further natural drying or blended later rather than being pushed through the pellet mills, which is why the factory can operate without a thermal dryer.

Annual Raw-Material Basis

The five streams total about 80,200 T/Y, which is close to the 80,000 T/Y combined finished-product plan. That near closure is important because it shows the factory is not relying on an unreported high-loss drying stage. The small difference is consistent with normal screening loss, dust recovery and inventory movement. Straw remains a minority ingredient so the plant can gain fiber diversity without allowing seasonal crop residue to dominate pellet quality.

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The Front End Is Larger Than the Pellet Section on Purpose

The animal bedding plant looks like one pellet mill line from the outside, but the internal capacity map is split. Primary shredding has to handle nearly the whole 80,000 T/Y residue stream, while only the pellet-grade fraction goes through fine grinding and the eight pellet mills. Crushed bedding can leave the process after the appropriate size-reduction and screening stage.

Main Equipment and Duty

The two shredders are not duplicate machines. The 30 T/H unit carries the bulk of wood offcuts and seasoned branches; the smaller unit handles lower-volume material and gives the operator another route when density or feed form changes. The same logic applies downstream: eight MZLH520 pellet mills provide approximately 12–16 T/H of aggregate biomass-pellet capacity, while two 8 T/H hammer mills provide up to about 16 T/H of fine-grinding duty. These sections are intentionally aligned around the 35,000 T/Y pellet program rather than the full 80,000 T/Y site throughput.

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Three Storage Zones Prevent Backtracking

The existing property covers about 6,000 m², with roughly 4,500 m² available as workshop and operational building space. The challenge was not building height; it was keeping bulky raw wood, shredded intermediate material and finished bedding from competing for the same floor area.

The final layout follows a mostly linear east-to-west material movement:

• West side → pelletizing, cooling, packing and finished-product transfer
• Middle → fine grinding, pellet-feed buffering and route separation
• East side → raw-material storage and primary shredding close to the truck entrance

Storage is divided by processing state rather than by supplier:

• About 1,000 m² for incoming clean wood, branches, sawdust and seasonal straw
• About 600 m² for shredded material waiting either for sale as crushed bedding or for fine grinding
• About 400 m² for cooled finished pellets and packed bedding ready for dispatch

The south-side entrance keeps loaders and inbound trucks close to the raw-material zone. Finished-product forklifts work mainly toward the west side, reducing the number of crossings between incoming residue and outbound bedding. This is especially useful in a one-shift plant because truck congestion can remove effective production time even when all machines are mechanically available.

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One Raw-Material Stream Splits Into Two Products

The process is best understood as a fork rather than a single straight pellet line. Nearly all bulky residues first pass through controlled storage and primary shredding. From there, suitable crushed bedding can leave the process, while the fraction intended for pellets continues to fine grinding, pelleting, cooling and packing.

Operating Route

1. Raw Material Storage
   • Clean residues are kept under cover and separated by moisture, particle form and contamination risk
   • Sawdust is protected from rain and excess compaction so it remains flowable during feeding
   • Large offcuts and branches are stacked behind barriers with clear loader access
2. Primary Shredding
   • Wood offcuts and branches are reduced toward a 5–20 cm intermediate size before route selection
   • Enclosed shredding and extraction limit coarse dust around the raw-material area
3. Product Route Selection
   • Belt and screw conveyors direct material either to crushed-bedding storage or toward fine grinding
   • Intermediate buffer storage decouples high-volume shredding from the smaller pellet branch
4. Fine Grinding for Pellet-Grade Material
   • Two hammer mills reduce the selected fraction to the particle size needed for stable bedding-pellet formation
   • Ground material moves to pellet-feed buffering; crushed bedding does not pass through this step unless finer fiber is required
5. Bedding Pelletizing
   • No routine binder is required when clean wood fiber, sawdust proportion and moisture are within the working range
   • Eight MZLH520 presses share the pellet duty so individual machines can be stopped for die change or roller maintenance
   • Die compression is adjusted for bedding absorbency and low fines rather than maximum fuel-pellet density
6. Cooling & Packing
   • Two counterflow cooling systems remove retained heat before finished pellets enter storage
   • Cooled pellets are packed mainly in ton bags for farm, distributor and industrial-scale bedding customers

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The Capacity Only Makes Sense When the Two Products Are Separated

The annual numbers close once the plant is treated as a dual-output bedding factory instead of a single pellet line.

• Primary shredding basis: about 84,000 T/Y, enough to carry almost the full raw-material stream
• Fine-grinding basis: about 38,400 T/Y, aligned with the fraction that can continue toward pelleting
• Installed pelletizing basis: about 38,400 T/Y at 16 T/H × 8 h/day × 300 days/year

The finished product plan deliberately uses less pellet tonnage than the maximum pellet-section calculation because part of the incoming biomass is sold after shredding.

The wood bedding pellet production line in Brazil supplies two finished bedding forms:

• Bedding pellets: about 35,000 T/Y
• Crushed bedding material: about 45,000 T/Y

At 300 working days and one 8-hour shift, 35,000 T/Y of pellets requires about 14.6 T/H, which sits inside the eight-MZLH520 installed range of roughly 12–16 T/H. The full 80,000 T/Y product plan averages about 33.3 T/H across the site, which is why the combined 30 T/H + 5 T/H primary shredding arrangement is materially larger than the pellet section.

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Electricity Replaces Thermal Drying in the Utility Profile

The plant has no thermal dryer, so there is no continuous burner, steam generator or drying-fuel demand. Electricity is the dominant utility because eight 132 kW pellet mills already represent more than 1 MW of installed main-motor power before shredders, hammer mills, conveyors, cooling fans and packing equipment are counted. This makes raw-material moisture control a commercial requirement as well as a process requirement: buying overly wet green biomass would immediately change the utility and equipment design.

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US$620,000 of Equipment Inside a US$780,000 Retrofit

• Main process equipment package: approximately US$620,000
• Existing workshop and major storage building reused, avoiding a greenfield civil-work program
• Completed fixed investment: approximately US$780,000 including equipment, electrical upgrades, cooling and dust-control integration, freight, installation, commissioning and startup spares

For a 15–16 T/H wood bedding pellet production line in Brazil, the investment is driven less by new buildings and more by the unusually large equipment count: eight pellet mills, two primary shredders, two hammer mills, two cooling systems and a substantial conveying network. Reusing the existing 6,000 m² property keeps the fixed investment below a comparable greenfield bedding factory.

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Qingdao to Santos for an Existing-Site Installation

• Port of departure: Qingdao Port, China
• Destination port: Port of Santos, Brazil, followed by inland transport to the southern Brazil project site

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Brazil Gives Bedding Producers Both Residue Supply and Livestock Demand

The project is viable because the feedstock and the customer base exist in the same wider agricultural economy. As an animal bedding pellet plant in Brazil, it can serve buyers that prefer densified bedding while still keeping a crushed-fiber route for customers that do not need pellets. Southern Brazil combines commercial forestry and wood processing with large poultry, pig, dairy and equine activities, so a bedding producer can source clean residue and sell into several animal sectors rather than depending on one buyer type.

• Forestry and sawmill residues that can be seasoned before processing
• Crop residues that can supplement the wood fraction when fiber quality and moisture are controlled
• Sawdust and clean offcuts from wood-processing operations within the regional sourcing radius

Turning those residues into either crushed bedding or pellets reduces the transport penalty of low-density loose material. The pellet route is used where customers value cleaner handling, repeatable bag weight and lower dust; the crushed route avoids unnecessary energy use when a buyer can accept loose fiber.

The two-product strategy gives the Brazil animal bedding pellet plant three commercial advantages:

• Pellets use truck and warehouse volume more efficiently than uncompacted loose residues
• Cooling, screening and ton-bag packing create a cleaner finished bedding product for enclosed storage
• One raw-material network can support both higher-value pellets and lower-processing-cost crushed bedding

Potential buyers include operations with different bedding-handling preferences, including customers searching for a poultry bedding pellet production line in Brazil or a wood-based bedding supplier for equine and cattle facilities:

• Poultry farms that need low-dust, easy-to-store litter or bedding materials
• Horse farms and equestrian facilities that value absorbency, clean storage and manageable packaging
• Dairy, beef and other livestock operations using wood-based bedding in housed or sheltered areas

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Do Not Size the Pellet Section From Total Residue Volume

The central design lesson is simple: an 80,000 T/Y bedding business does not automatically need 80,000 T/Y of pellet capacity. In this project, about 45,000 T/Y can leave as crushed bedding, so the pellet section is sized around the remaining 35,000 T/Y.

That separation keeps three decisions aligned:

• Primary shredding is sized for nearly the whole raw-material stream
• Fine grinding and eight MZLH520 pellet mills are sized only for the fraction that actually needs densification
• Customers can choose pellets or crushed bedding without forcing both products through the same energy-intensive route

A livestock bedding pellet plant in Brazil becomes much easier to justify when raw-material moisture, product split, storage days and buyer packaging are fixed before equipment capacity is selected.

For anyone considering a similar pellet machine line, the useful starting data are annual residue tonnage by material, natural moisture after storage, the share to be sold as crushed bedding, required pellet diameter, daily operating hours and target customers. Those inputs determine whether the project needs one pellet line, several parallel presses, a dryer, larger cooling capacity or simply a better front-end shredding system.