Wood pellet quality depending on dendromass species

Abstract

Pellet consumption and the number of pellet-fired boilers have been growing steadily in Europe, which is a consequence of their compactness, the automated fuel feeding process and the overall system operation. This increase in the share of biomass-fired boilers is also noticeable in Poland, with automatic wood pellet boilers accounting for the majority of them. However, wood biomass is diverse with respect to its properties, determined by its systematic genus, among other things. Therefore, this research examines a diversity of seven types of pellets produced from various genera of trees sawdust (coniferous and deciduous). This is important as uncertainty about the impact of the raw material properties on the pellet quality and meeting or not market standards are obstacles faced by the sectors using this biofuel. The thermophysical properties and elementary composition were determined, and all results were referred to ISO 17225–2:2021-10 standards, the Pellet Fuels Institute and the Korea Forest Research Institute. The systematic tree genus was found to significantly differentiate all pellet quality parameters, and only pellets made from two out of the seven tree species (P. sylvestris and P. strobus) met the most strict standards contained in each of the three norms.