Solid Biofuels

Solid biofuels are wood, sawdust, grass trimmings, domestic refuse, charcoal, agricultural waste, non-food energy crops and dried manure. When raw biomass is already in a suitable form, it can burn directly in a stove or furnace to provide heat or raise steam. When raw biomass is in an inconvenient form, the typical process is used to densify the biomass. This process includes grinding the raw biomass to an appropriate particulate size (known as hogfuel), which depending on the densification type can be from 1 to 3 cm, which is then concentrated into a fuel product. The current types of processes are wood pellet, cube or puck. The pellet process is most common in Europe and is typically a pure wood product. The other types of densification are larger in size compared to a pellet and are compatible with a broad range of input feedstocks. The resulting densified fuel is easier to transport and feed into thermal generation systems such as boilers.