An alternative supply system for stump biomass - coarse grinding combined with sieving of the produced hog fuel

Abstract

Transport costs are one of the major costs in the supply chain of stumps for fuel. Stump parts are bulkyand it is impossible to achieve full tonnages on trucks and trailers even though the load space iscompletely full. The transport economy for stumps is also negatively affected by the large amount ofcontaminants in the loads. Grinding the stumps at the landing and sieving of the produced hog fuel hasthe potential to increase load weights and reduce both the amount of contaminants and the transportcosts. To evaluate such a system a series of studies were made. Results show that coarse grinding andsieving reduced both moisture and ash content in the produced fuel, thus increasing the heating valueper ton delivered fuel and transforming a soil contaminated material to an acceptable fuel. Transportpayloads increased substantially compared to transports of stump parts, but a transport distance of110 km was needed before the coarse grinding system provided lower cost than the standard systemwith transports of stump parts and grinding at the heating plant. Further studies are needed to evaluatethe total energy efficiency in the two systems. Coarse grinding and sieving is a feasible way to increasefuel quality and improve transport economy. However, total costs will in most cases be higher than forthe loose stump system which renders the method preferable only in cases where the sieving processconverts a non-acceptable material into an acceptable fuel.

Keywords

Fuel consumption; forest fuel; fuel quality; comminution; transport cost

Published in

International Journal of Forest Engineering
2016, Volume: 27, number: 2, pages: 109-114

SLU Authors

• Anerud, Erik

  • Department of Energy and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG7 Affordable and clean energy


UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science
Wood Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14942119.2016.1166917

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/85757