In Atlanta (USA), 14&15 June 2017 took place the Forest Products Machinery & Equipment Exposition. Our division, Prodesa North America was there, represented by our colleague Forcus Martinez, Sales Manager at Prodesa NA along with Cooper Machine in their booth n 1816.
A real pleasure to participate in this amazing expo, the most important in the States for the sawmill sector.

Image courtesy https://sfpaexpo.com/

At present, PRODESA is participating in several revamping Projects around the globe. Most of them are in the field of biomass, where the investment greater and the expertise is indispensable. USA, Canada, Russia, Latvia, Vietnam and Spain are only some examples of countries where this kind of projects are placed.

PRODESA has been selected for a Technical Due Diligence and Process Improvements through a Revamping in an existing pellet plant, located in Tennessee (USA) with a current production of 112.000 ton/y.

• New dry product storage
• New pellet mills’ feeding system
• New automation and control system
• Plant assistance (on site) for new plant improvements
• New pellet silos’ discharging system
• New truck and train loading systems

CIVIL WORKS

The client has already started the civil works where the Pellet Plant associate to a Biomass Cogeneration Plant will start up soon. Civil works are at a very advanced stage and they will be finished at the end of July

This is the aspect of the Pelletizing line building already far advanced.

Emplacement of the ORC and the Debarking line

Machines are arriving on site

It is foreseen that Prodesa will join the development of the project in September, when civil works has been completed,  so the machines are arriving on site to be ready. A key milestone was reached in relation with the delivery of main equipments.

Starting with the Assembly of the Drying island – Low temperature belt dryer. After been manufactured the Belt Dryer and the intermediate modules are on site ready to be installed. The drying island is the heart of the plant. Design, control and operation are the key to achieve the production objectives.

The selected dryer is a low temperature belt dryer that uses hot water coming from a cogeneration system. With the hot water we generate hot air needed for the drying process. This kind of dryer has the following benefits: Low energy consumption, low level of emissions, use of low temperature energy, careful drying for optimal product quality, automated operation or low maintenance works.

Second phase will be the installation of the Milling line (Dry hammer mill) and the Thermal Oil Biomass Boiler.

Dry milling line is required to reduce the particle size, thus the machines and line design has been developed to get the required wood pellet quality. It is discharged downwards by pneumatic system. Thus, the hammer mill is equipped with a cyclone-filter, in order to control the dust emission to the atmosphere and to separate the product from the air flow.

And the Pelletizing line will follow in Automn. 2 pellet presses are already on site with a production of 6,0 ton/h

Next in line the Raw Material Processing: Debarking and Chipping line

The wood handling line has been designed to be able to process round woods logs and wood chips according to the specifications of the client.

The chipper, in the image,  incorporates a knives technology machine in order to reduce the logs to wood chips with the correct particle size for the wet milling stage

And Wet hammer mill. This hammer mill has been selected in order to reduce the particle size of the wood chips so they have an optimum drying process and they reach the milling stage with the optimum drying process, moisture content & size.

It will be at the end of the year that the Cogeneration Line will be installed. It will include one Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) in order to produced the required thermal power in the drying line and also to supply electrical power.