Pellet is becoming a popular alternative to wood and charcoal for these outdoor cooking methods. Wood pellets even introduce smoke into the propane-powered baking field, which was impossible before. So, What company makes wood pellets?

Our research has revealed What company makes wood pellets? By manufacturing wood pellets from fibers that have been burned or left behind, the wood pellet industry is reducing waste and turning that debris into valuable, low-carbon biofuels.

Contents

How are wood pellets made?

To create wood pellets, manufacturers remove moisture from the incoming wood fiber, grind the fiber into dust, and press the dust into small cylinders—pellets—usually 6 or 8 mm in diameter and up to 40 mm long. This process uses heat to cause lignin, a natural polymer found in wood, to act as a glue that holds the compressed particles together.

The result is a dry, highly compressed product with a high energy content that is easy to handle and can be transported efficiently over very long distances.

Efficient, sustainable energy source

Wood pellets are used both in everyday life and in industry. Many people in colder climates worldwide use wood pellet boilers or stoves to heat their homes. Today’s modern boilers are so well automated that they don’t need a human operator or maintenance other than loading pellets for the winter season, pushing a button to start the system, and removing the ash six months later.

Furnaces are more common in North America. The pellets are simply manually loaded into the hopper of the oven and burned continuously, creating an efficient and uniform heat source. For industrial power generation, wood pellets are used as a low-carbon alternative to coal. The pellets are crushed back into dust, the dust is mixed with air, and the resulting mixture is continuously fed into a flame that creates steam to generate electricity.

What process is used to make wood pellets?

Untreated wood trimmings and waste residues are first passed through a shredder to reduce the size of the material. These smaller pieces are then ground to wood fiber or, in some cases, to a fine powder. The wood fibers are then scanned with a magnet to remove any metals that may have entered the wood at any stage of the process up to that point.

Excess moisture is then removed from the wood fibers through a drying process that reduces the moisture content of the wood to 6%.

After the drying process, the wood can be turned into pellets using a pellet mill. The granulator is a large press that passes the wood fiber through a die to produce pellets of the desired size. The process involves heat and extreme pressure to push the wood fibers through a pellet-sized hole in the die to get the pellets on the opposite side. Heating is an essential aspect of the process to help the pellets retain their shape after exiting the back of the die.