Wood Pellet Production Line in Turkey

RICHI MACHINERY

overview

This is a wood pellet production line in Turkey project.

On October 13, 2022, we received an email from Turkey. The language of the email was not complicated: “Hi Dear, I’m Yunus from TURKEY. I need to offer wood pellet machine system. Can you help me?” – The signature was short and went straight to the point, without complicated business terms or too much background. In the saturated foreign trade emails, this consultation from the Anatolian Peninsula seems inconspicuous, but it has aroused our high attention to a potential market.

Just one month later, on November 15, 2022, the customer named Yunus finalized the purchase contract for the entire wood pellet production line with us, with a transaction amount of US$217,420.

Such a rapid advancement is not common in our wood pellet plant construction project cooperation history. The reason behind it is not only the recognition of the equipment itself, but also reflects the local urgent demand for biomass energy and the customer’s strong desire to control the pace of the project.

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Origin of the wood pellet production line in Turkey project

Yunus is not a traditional wood processing business owner, but an entrepreneur engaged in agricultural complex operations. He owns a fruit farm located in the suburbs of Bursa, Turkey, mainly planting cherry, plum and olive trees.

He has been committed to the high-value utilization of agricultural waste, trying to “resource” waste such as pruning stumps, aging fruit trees, and wooden packaging boxes to reduce the pollution caused by incineration and reduce the cost of cleaning.

As Europe’s support policy for renewable energy spreads to Turkey, coupled with the increasingly tense energy market in Turkey, Yunus began to plan to set up a complete wood pellet line for processing forestry scraps and fruit tree branch waste in 2022.

He not only intends to provide fuel pellets for heating his own farm, but also hopes to use this wood pellet production line in Turkey to produce commercial-grade pellets to connect with the pellet stove heating market around Istanbul and Izmir.

“I don’t want any branches to be burned in vain.” – Yunus told us on the day of signing the contract, “If you can use these discarded materials to exchange for stable income, why not do it?”

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Raw material used in Wood Pellet Production Line in Turkey

Turkey has rich forest resources, with a coverage rate of more than 29%. Natural broad-leaved forests and pine forests are found in central and western Anatolia. In addition, a large number of orchards will produce a large number of pruning branches after the picking season. These materials, which were once considered waste, have now become a valuable source of biomass pellets.

In this wood pellet production line in Turkey project, Yunus mainly uses the following types of raw materials:

• Olive branches and root segments: Pruning in autumn every year produces a large number of woody branches with strong fiber toughness and high calorific value, which are suitable for pelletization.
• Plum and cherry trunk waste: A large number of woody trunks when fruit trees are aged and renewed, with high lignin content.
• Pine scraps: Purchase woodworking factory scraps from local wood distribution markets, such as veneer and particle board corners.
• Old wooden boxes and fruit pallets: Disassembled and crushed wooden packaging materials commonly used on farms.
• Hazelnut shells and walnut shell blends: Used to supplement fiber and improve the appearance of pellets.

Most of these raw materials come from the customer’s own agricultural management system, which has the advantage of “self-production and self-use”; some materials are regularly recycled through cooperation agreements with neighboring orchards, so as to achieve local materials and low-cost supply.

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Customized pellet process for Turkish farms

Considering that the raw materials are mainly fruit tree branches and farm miscellaneous wood, Yunus’ biomass pellet production line has been optimized in terms of process to ensure compatibility with raw materials of different forms and moisture contents. The overall process of this wood pellet production line in Turkey is:

Slicing → Crushing → Drying → Silo Temporary Storage → Granulation → Cooling → Screening → Automatic Packing

1. Log Slicing
   After the log raw materials enter the factory, they are first pre-treated by a drum slicer, and the slice length is controlled between 3-5cm, which effectively reduces the subsequent crusher load. The trunk diameter of fruit trees is usually small, and the slicing efficiency is high.
2. Crushing
   The sliced ​​material enters the hammer mill, and the crushed particle size is controlled between 3-5mm. Some olive branches and fruit trees with strong toughness need to be equipped with a counterattack plate to enhance the crushing effect.
3. Drying
   The drying system uses a drum hot air dryer, the heat source is the hot air produced by the wood chip burner, and the drying temperature is set below 150℃ to ensure that the moisture content is reduced to 10-12%. Due to the large fluctuation of moisture content in fruit wood, the system is specially designed with an automatic temperature and humidity adjustment system.
4. Temporary storage in silos
   The dried raw materials are sent to the sealed silo through the elevator to avoid moisture resorption and achieve short-term buffering to ensure the continuity of granulation.
5. Granulation
   The MZLH520 ring die wood pellet mill is used, with a die hole diameter of 6mm and an optimized roller ratio to adapt to harder fruit wood materials. The granulation temperature is maintained at 80-90℃, with a high effective compression rate and smooth and dense particles.
6. Cooling
   The hot particles after granulation enter the countercurrent cooler and are slowly cooled to room temperature by normal temperature airflow, which increases the particle strength and prevents breakage.
7. Screening
   The finished product is screened by a drum screening machine, and the undersized particles are returned, and the finished particles enter the packaging section.
8. Automatic packaging
   Equipped with an automatic weighing and packaging system, it is suitable for three specifications of 15kg, 25kg and ton bags to meet the diverse needs of local sales and exports.

This whole set of processes of this wood pellet production line in Turkey project is specially adjusted for the special-shaped features of orchard waste and lightweight wood, achieving a balance between compatibility and efficiency.

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the main wood pellet equipment list

The total investment of this wood pellet production line in Turkey project is US$217,420, covering the following core wood pellet manufacturing equipment:

• Drum slicer (1 set)
• Wood hammer mill (1 set, power 75kW)
• Drum wood chip dryer (1 set, with combustion furnace)
• Lifting conveying system (multi-point layout of the whole line)
• Sealed silo (2 steel structures)
• MZLH520 ring die wood pellet machine (1 set)
• Counterflow cooling tower (1 set, automatic exhaust)
• Drum screening equipment (1 set)
• Automatic weighing and baling machine (1 set, including sealing port)

All equipment for wood pellet production line in Turkey is managed by a centralized control cabinet, and the PLC program presets three operating modes (continuous, intermittent, and maintenance), which can be remotely diagnosed and maintained.

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Expandable pellet types and processing potential

Although this wood pellet production line in Turkey focuses on wood pellets, Yunus plans to expand the following pellet categories in the future because the equipment retains a certain degree of flexibility in the early design:

• Olive cake fuel pellets: The residue after olive oil pressing is rich in fiber and suitable for energy pellets.
• Walnut shell and hazelnut shell pellets: high calorific value materials, can be pelletized alone or blended.
• Biomass charcoal-based pretreated pellets: combined with a carbonization furnace, it can be used as an activated carbon pretreatment raw material.
• Pet litter pellets (such as cat litter): based on wood chips, add deodorizers and bentonite to expand high value-added markets.

This cross-category capability allows customers to have stronger risk resistance in future market fluctuations.

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New opportunities for starting Wood Pellet Production Line in Turkey

In recent years, the Turkish government has vigorously promoted clean energy substitution plans in rural areas. Since 2021, about 47 rural demonstration areas across the country have piloted the use of wood pellet stoves to replace traditional coal stoves. At the same time, municipalities in large cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir have gradually included pellet fuel in the winter heating subsidy catalog. This provides policy impetus for the biomass fuel pellet industry.

In addition, in response to the energy crisis, the EU continues to expand its import quota for biomass fuels from third countries. Turkey is regarded as a potential candidate for a new generation of pellet exporters due to its geographical proximity, complete ports and moderate labor costs.

It is against this background that Yunus has laid out its wood biomass pellet production line, hoping to supply not only the local boiler fuel market in the future, but also export products to neighboring countries such as Bulgaria and Greece.

When the wood pellet production line in Turkey project was put into trial production in March 2023, Yunus posted a photo on his farm’s social media: a pile of fruit tree branches were pushed into the slicer, next to which were neatly stacked 15kg fuel pellet bags. He added: “The troubles of the orchard every year have become the source of family warmth this year.

This complete wood pellet plant in Turkey not only solves the problem of handling waste branches on the farm, but also allows customers to enter an energy market with huge development potential at a very small marginal cost. Under the current trend of global energy shortages and stricter environmental protection policies, such projects undoubtedly provide a reference path for increasing agricultural added value.

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A month’s decision is a microcosm of an era

From the brief email on October 13, 2022 to the signing and finalization of the entire technical plan on November 15, this cooperation took only one month. For us, this is not only a customer’s trust, but also a case of combining “fast and stable”. For Yunus, this is an important part of the gradual transformation of his farm, which has been operating for many years, towards green energy.

More importantly, this is not a closed wood pellet production line in Turkey, but a green channel connecting orchard waste, local energy markets, home heating and export channels. It proves that even a waste branch can become a beam of light that ignites the world as long as the path and direction are correct.