Abstract
An engineering economic analysis of a biomass pelleting process was performed for conditions in North America. The biomass pelleting process consists of a series of unit operations namely drying, size reduction, pelletization, cooling, screening and warehousing. Capital and operating cost of the pelleting plant was estimated at several plant capacities. Pellet production cost for a base case plant capacity of 6 t/h was about $51/t of pellets. Raw material cost was the largest cost factor on the total pellet production cost followed by personnel cost, drying cost and pelleting mill cost. An increase in raw material cost substantially increased the pellet production cost. Large-scale pellet plants with a plant capacity of more than 10t/h decreased the costs to roughly $40/t of pellets. Five different burner fuels – wet sawdust, dry sawdust, biomass pellets, natural gas and coal were tested for their effect on the cost of pellet production. Wet sawdust and coal, the cheapest burner fuels, produced the lowest pellet production cost. Tthe environmental impacts due to the potential emissions of these fuels during the combustion process require further investigation.