How to Make Your Own Woodpellets

As fossil fuel costs soar, people seek cheaper alternatives.

As heating oil and natural gas prices soar, people seek alternative fuel sources for heating. The cheapest is biomass material, in this case wood pellets. Pellets are readily available, low-priced, safe, easy-to-use and environmentally friendly. They can be made from switch grass, grain, corn cobs and stalks, paper, sawdust, leaves and other waste material containing cellulose. If you can reduce the size of your biomass to granular form, you can make pellets. It's not difficult to make wood or biomass pellets, but you need to invest in equipment and time.

Things You'll Need

• Sawdust or other biomass
• Small hammer mill
• Small pellet mill
• Mesh screen
• Vegetable oil

Instructions

1. 

   If you can reduce your biomass to granular size, you can make woodpellets.

   Dry your sawdust or biomass to a moisture level of 15%-20%. Break your raw material down to particles smaller than 1/4" using the hammer mill. If your biomass is already smaller than 1/4", such as sawdust, you won't need a hammer mill.

2. Feed the raw material into the pellet mill and heat with steam, pressure or a combination of both. This causes naturally occurring lignin in plant fibers to plasticize and glue the pellet together after cooling. The pellet mill compresses the biomass through a die and rollers that give pellets their tubular shape.

3. Dry extruded pellets slowly on mesh screen so pellets harden and retain their shape.

4. Pack and seal pellets in plastic bags that can be carried easily. The bags prevent the pellets from absorbing moisture.

Tips & Warnings

• Rent a hammer mill and pellet mill to save money, or make a co-operative purchase with neighbors.

• If using leaves, paper or materials without lignin, add a small amount of vegetable oil to bind pellets.

• If pellets dry too quickly, they will crumble and become useless.

• If pellets absorb moisture, they will burn inefficiently or not at all.

References

• WorldForestIndustries.com: Making Wood Pellets
• The Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living: Wood Pellets