Förädling Bränslekvalitet Åkerbränslen - Energimyndigheten

equipment and harvesting technologies that will minimize the number of passes
over a field, and optimize the type of product packaging: chopped, briquettes, or
in time maybe pelletized or torrefied.
Increased demand for biofuels will mean that more types of raw materials with
varying characteristics must be utilized. The analysis of logistics chains and
handling of fuel are indicated as knowledge areas where efforts will be required,
e.g. the calculation of efficiency, waiting times, storage losses, economics and
environmental performance. Life cycle analyses should be carried out regarding
different fuels and recovery/harvesting systems with different types of storage and
different levels of storage losses.
Thematic area Refinement
Activities within this thematic area comprise six projects that can be sorted under
the headings Fuel Quality Measurement Methods, Pellets Production, Combustion
Characteristics of Pellets and New Fuel Types. About 70 per cent of the resources
invested in the area go to research into the production of pellets in collaboration
between universities and industry. The activities are a continuation of earlier
research programmes and have the character of long-term research with a strong
industrial relevance. The ultimate objective is to meet the rapidly increasing
demand for fuel pellets sustainably, and for the long term, and activities are
expected to buttress the Swedish pellet industry’s position as the world leader.
The main objective of activities in the pellets production area is the ability to use
new raw materials and to achieve more efficient technologies, processes and
storage for the production of fuel pellets and a long term and reliable support of
refined biofuel. Important advances include recipes for new raw materials, of
which some have already been introduced. From a more scientific point of view,
the advance represents a greater understanding of the pelletizing process and
the pre-treatment of – and the interaction between – raw materials influencing the
binding process. Some pelletizing trials have been carried out at a pilot plant and
promising results have been tested in industrial scale. Examples of raw materials
are pine sawdust with varying storage times and moisture levels, birch, spruce,
energy wood with and without bark, peat, different types of lignin, starch and
rapeseed cake. Pilot trials using straw and willow in the raw material mix will be
carried out in 2010.
Bottlenecks throughout the chain, including new pelletizing technology and
materials issues, will be taken up. Methods such as electron and microwave
radiation, increased temperatures and the pelletizing of extracted wood and pure
cellulose have been investigated at laboratory level. Industrial trials focusing on
the control of mills/driers and the significance of crumbs and fines have been
carried out, as have studies of dust in working environments.
Key factors in the storage of raw materials are the minimization of fatty acids
and resin acids. The connection between a raw material’s maturity and storage
time was studied in a large-scale storage trial. Supercritical carbon dioxide was
tested in the extraction of fatty acids and resin acids at laboratory level. Attempts
to accelerate oxidation were also initiated using electron and microwave radiation,
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