Make Wood Pellets at Home with a Pellet Mill

A pellet mill is the fundamental piece of equipment that is needed in order to make wood or biomass pellets. Because of the last couple of year's shifting energy and fuel prices, many people throughout the world have been searching for secondary heating sources to heat their homes and researching how to make pellets at home. And when the cost of a barrel of crude oil approaches $150, it's easy to see why.

As a little back story, pellets as a source of fuel since the mid 1970's. Interestingly enough, they were produced as a response to the energy crisis of the 1970's. Imagine that, history repeating itself! In Any Event, they've been used for heat by hundreds of thousands if not more, and have established themselves as a good fuel source, utilizing waste materials that might have ordinarily been placed in the landfill.

Now, if you plan to form wood or biomass pellets at home, you'll need to get a pellet machine, or what's more commonly known as a pellet mill. While there are other pieces of equipment that may be needed, a hammer mill for example, let's assume that the sizing of the wood or biomass waste that you're planning on using to produce pellets is sized small enough to be utilized in the pellet mill without further processing.

There are two basic types of pellet mills that can be used to to make pellets, but for most people, a flat plate die pellet mill will typically be used. And just like it's name implies, it makes pellets by forcing the wood waste material through a flat plate die. It's essentially a form of extrusion. The process occurs because of the mechanical processes of the mill coupled with either the physical properties of the material or supplemental binders that are combined with the raw materials in order to aid in cohesion, the biomass or wood forms into a convenient pellet form as it passes through the die.

This has been a very over simplified explanation of how pellet machines work, but it will hopefully will help to illustrate the function of a pellet mill. In the real process, the exact method will be highly dependent upon the type of raw material that's used for pellet manufacturing.