Did EFB Pellet Accepted by the Biomass Market

DST is one of the EFB pellet manufacturer and supplier in Malaysia. We are getting many inquiry from various espects EFB pellet however we are seeing less trading after the inquiry. Many inquiries also indicate potential buyers are looking for alternative energy resources.

China government has come out an aggressive regulation to reduce and restrict the use of coal in order to improve air quality. Biomass is definitely one of the alternative energy source to fill up the energy gap from coal, and EFB pellet definitely one of the choices.

Current Available Biomass in the Market

Currently there are several biomass material, such as wood chip, Palm Kernel Shell (PKS), wood pellet. Most of the biomass above has been existed in the market for a period of time. With the large energy demanding gap from China, many buyers has extended their needs to other resources.

DST is one of the biomass supplier in Malaysia for many years. We are exploring the potential of EFB pellet as the new biomass resources since several years ago. We are anticipating a shortage of biomass resources in energy sector after coal has been banned, we strongly believe EFB pellet should be the hot selling biomass resource product.

DST Corporate Profile Organization

Challenges for EFB Pellet to be Market

Through out our marketing in biomass sector, we face several challenges while marketing the EFB pellet for the industry. These challenges include:

Pricing. Pelleting is consuming huge energy in a pellet mill. In order to manufacture a quality EFB pellet, the dry EFB fibre shall be heavily compress to high density pellet. DST has emphasized this pelleting process to ensure our EFB pellet quality, this also implies that we are producing the EFB pellet with no trade off in the manufacturing cost. Perhaps our EFB pellet cost is not under wood pellet price.
Packing and Handling. EFB pellet is a high density pellet but it requires extra care handling to prevent causing damage or broken. The EFB pellet shall be packed in jumbo bag and follow with proper handling through out the transportation process. A lot of handling guidances have to consider to ensure the EFB pellet is nicely delivery to customer site.
Availability. For our pellet mill setup, our pellet manufacturing ability is set at 1000MT per month. 1000MT should be a small amount as compare to a factory needs, but 1000MT of EFB pellet has already made us almost like non-stop for a month. Many companies’ buyer have rejected our proposal as we only have 1000MT EFB pellet per month as this volume is much less than their monthly consumption.

The above challenges should not be the stopper for DST to promote EFB pellet to the market. However this has slow down the EFB pellet to be marketed in industry application. Currently DST has worked with several boiler manufactuers in Malaysia to ensure our product suit the industry.

Will Market Accept EFB Pellet as Biomass Alternative?

Since a EFB pellet is manufacture via dedicate pelleting process, this also implies that the EFB pellet has the higher cost as compare to other raw biomass products such as PKS and wood-chip. In occasion, the EFB pellet is selling slightly higher price compare with wood pellet. With the high costing, EFB pellet has become less cost effective for many industries even though this product has other advantageous.

As the main EFB pellet supplier, DST has seek all possibility to market the EFB pellet. So far, we agree this product only means for a small niche of customers especially in Japan and Korea market. We have the flexibility to pack and handle the EFB pellet so that consumer customer needs are well taken care.

In short, since we launch our EFB pellet product, we know this is our upcoming biomass resource in energy sector but need sometime for customer to adopt especially the industry sector. DST is still very patient while come into promoting this product in the market, and we believe EFB pellet should be our future.

August 22, 2014

Overview of Biomass in Malaysia

While we are moving toward urbanization and looking for better living standard, this has lead the increasing demand in energy. This also apply to Malaysia. In order to fulfill the energy gap, Malaysia government has come out several counter measures to encourage the use of renewable energy, this include biomass energy. Biomass in Malaysia has recorded growth since pass few years, and the increasing trend is still continue.

Biomass and bioenergy are seeing considerable growth in years as general public and policy maker aware the inherent advantages of clean and green energy. Among the renewable energy, biomass energy is one of the low cost per MW among other renewable energy source..

Why Malaysia Committed in Biomass Renewable Energy?

Biomass in Malaysia is referring to plant waste being converted to energy. There are many ways for applying the biomass waste as renewable energy, now we are seeing more choices with better efficiency and effectiveness. Pelletizing is one of the process converting the biomass into more efficient pellet, such as efb pellet and saw dust pellet.

Target increase of biomass energy in South-East Asia

In overall Sourth-East Asia, there are about 15% of electrical energy was derived from biomass, and we targeted the figure should rise to 25% by the year of 2020. The same trend also apply to Malaysia.

Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Phillipine and Indonesia are expanding their biomass development in it own country. Thailand is the South-East Asia country having the largest renewable energy derive from biomass energy. However biomass energy in Malaysia also project increase substantially for next 10 years.

Biomass Prospect in Malaysia

The raw material of biomass in Malaysia could always refer to oil palm waste, sugar cane, peddy husk and wood-chip. Oil palm waste in Malaysia is the largest contribution among those biomass. Due to large availability and various form of biomass material in Malaysia, this has promote Malaysia having a good platform to develop it biomass industry.

Malaysia pellet manufacturer has gained more attention in worldwide biomass market. The resourceful of biomass commodity, technology and government incentive scheme has make the country has more export in pellet.

Biomass Target in Malaysia

For year 2010, the renewable energy in Malaysia achieve 510MW, and biomass energy contribute 470MW of energy. This has shown that the country is heavily relly on biomass for renewable energy. In year 2030, the biomass energy in Malaysia will increase to 1525MW.

DST as one of the biomass supplier in Malaysia, we have taken the opportunity to expand our biomass production line from raw biomass material into pelletize biomass product. We are very confident customer could select suitable biomass commodity from our comprehensive product line.

We also committed to work with our customer to provide high quality biomass commodity.

June 6, 2014June 6, 2014

Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell – Steam Cost

Know that many readers are facing challenge on selecting biomass and natural gas for generating heat or steam gas. This is a never ending debate unless we could specifically compare both commodities side by side within certain criteria.

Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell Comparison

There are many type of biomass commodities in Malaysia, however we want to minimize the variation and focus on the comparison between natural gas vs. palm kernel shell. Reader could change to other type of biomass instead of palm kernel shell with the same procedure.

Objective for Comparing Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell

We want to come out a calculation to show the material cost for generating 1000kg of steam between natural gas and palm kernel shell.

Basic Calorific Value for Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

Calorific value is the heat generated during the burning process. The calorific value for natural gas is 35,000kJ/m³, whereby the calorific value for palm kernel shell (PKS) is 4200kJ/kg or 17,640kJ/kg.

We need to move forward to calculate the natural gas and palm kernel shell requires in order generating 1000kg of steam.

Conversion Rate and Efficiency for Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

The conversion rate for Natural Gas is 0.8 whereby the palm kernel shell is only 0.65. In order words, 80% of the natural gas’s calorific value will be used to heat up the steam whereby palm kernel shell only occupied 65% of it calorific value.

Natural gas needs to take up 80m³ in order to heat up 1000kg of steam. On the other hand, you may need up to 200kg of palm kernel shell to heat up 1000kg of steam.

Material Cost Comparison between Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

Now we have better understanding about the natural gas and palm kernel shell consumption in order to produce 1000kg of steam gas. The unit price of natural gas is about RM0.80 whereby palm kernel shell is RM0.20.

With the multiplication, the raw material cost for natural gas is RM64 compare to palm kernel shell RM40.

From the calculation, we know that the biomass system (palm kernel shell) is having 50% lower in term of raw material cost as compare to natural gas.

Hope this calculation could clear up some doubt about the raw material cost comparison between natural gas vs. palm kernel shell. However we haven’t considered the operation cost between these 2 system.

February 16, 2014

About Boiler Ash

Recently I received an email discuss about the application of boiler ash. I am quite happy as I am seeing there are people who want to explore more about the application for boiler ash.

Let me share what I understand about this boiler ash and see if we could brainstorm for having better solution on the boiler ash application.

There are many boiler mfg and boiler type available in the industry, and since we are talking about boiler ash, I would presume the boiler ash is actually coming from biomass boiler. Biomass boiler basically is a type of boiler burn biomass (EFB, palm kernel shell, wood chip, EFB pellet, rice husk, etc) as the heat source.

The boiler ash is the left over in the biomass boiler after the burning process. The boiler technician will periodically clean the ash.

Categorize of Boiler Ash

In ideal biomass boiler design, a particular boiler is designed base on dedicate biomass. However, in practical application, user always mixes several type of biomass available in the market. Take an example a particular biomass boiler is designed for EFB, however in actual case, the user may burn EFB, palm kernel shell for the boiler.

Boiler ash is the substance coming out from the boiler discharge. Because the boiler user is using more than one type of biomass commodity, this becomes the challenge that how we are going to categorize the boiler ash?

Application of Boiler Ash

I am not in the position to answer this question unless we clearly characterize the boiler ash. For instance, those boilers which only using EFB as the burning commodity, the boiler ash could be gather and sell as bunch ash.

However for those boiler ashes with little to now value, land fill should be the only application.

Pelletize the Boiler Ash

Pelletize could be simple process in the condition if you aware the commodity characteristic. The pelletize could be understand as a compression process to transfer a loose or spongy substance to a higher density substance.

Some of the substances could be compressed and bind as high density product from it nature, this include wood pellet and EFB pellet. However, some of the substance may need to add certain level of binder in order to form a pellet.

Personally I do not test whether boiler ash whether could be achieved pellet form via mechanical compression, but I really doubt so.

Hope this article did clear some of your doubt about boiler ash. Feel free to leave your comment in the follow column if any.

November 28, 2013November 28, 2013

Palm Fibre and Palm Kernel Shell from Malaysia

Malaysia is a resourceful country especially in renewable energy. Many people know Malaysia is rich in underground oil reserves, year-round solar energy, good rainfall and rivers, however biomass energy is often ignored.
In fact, Malaysia is having plenty of resources of biomass energy. Among Biomass resources in Malaysia, crude palm oil industry is generating access biomass resource than trees. Crude Palm Oil industry is producing at least 5 million tons of palm kernel shell and palm fiber each year. These two substances （Palm kernel shell & palm fibre） are the main contribution for biomass energy .

Palm fiber

Fiber is a fluffy substance that also saying need larger space for storage and transporting. Palm fibre should go through compression into bale form in order to increase transport efficiency. However, Malaysian local biomass plant located not very far away from palm oil plant, hence the palm fiber is sent under raw form.
From application stand point, raw palm fiber mostly used as biomass purpose. For other applications , such as long fiber or palm fibre pellet, those products are processed to add value.
The long fibers extract from palm fiber will be sorted out as the material for making palm mattress. And we all know, China is currently the major palm mattress production base. In order to improve the efficiency inshipping, the manufacturer will compress the long fibers into bale form for the convenient shipping process from Malaysia to China. A 20-foot container, it can be fitted with about seven tons of bundled form long fiber.
EFB pallet is another application for short fibre. The fluffy fiber will be squeezed in the EFB pelletizing press machine rollers in order to form a high-density EFB pallet. A well establish press machine is able to produce EFB pallet with diameter of 8mm, and pallet length of 15-20mm. EFB pallet is normally asking for much higher price then the raw form of material, in most cases, the EFB pellet is selling higher price than palm kernel shell. Packing wise, a one ton bags can only load with 700kg of EFB pallet.

Palm kernel shell

As know by many people, the black colour shell from oil palm fruit is the hard shell which we name it as palm kernel shell. Palm kernel shell itself is a high density material . These high density shell , can burn for generating combustion calorific heat about 4,200 kcal / kg. Palm kernel shell is a high density and low moisture product, so it is also act as a natural biomass pallet. In this region, most of the PKS is shipped under raw form.
During transportation, a tonage bag could load around 600kg of palm kernel shell . Palm kernel shell is more favourable for transport under loose form as it will not cause damage. However for EFB pellet, it will break if the handling process is not appropriate. In many case, a EFB pellet will break into shorter pellet size after transportation.
Because of palm kernel shell is not easy to broken features, during transportation, we can ship the PKS under loose form in 20-foot container . Each 20 -foot container can carry up to 19-ton palm kernel shell, this also imply palm kernel shell is more efficiency even shipping under container.

From the perspective of biomass energy, palm kernel shell is one of the favourable biomass commodity. This product is more favourable to transport and providing high calorific value and less moisture. Palm kernel shell is currently the most common biomass energy commodity for exports and overseas market.

February 24, 2013

Latest EFB Briquette

DST has committed in renewable energy sector at Malaysia, we has set our target to provide more

choices for biomass energy resources to local and worldwide market. We have heavily involved in supplying of EFB pellet, saw dust pellet and biomass palm briquette. On the other hand, we do study with the customer need in order to supply more choices of biomass products for the market. 25mm diameter of EFB briquette is one of our latest biomass energy resources.

Revolution of EFB Briquette

Briquette referring to larger diameter biomass commodity whereby pellet is always refer to small size such as below 10mm diameter.

Large EFB Palm Briquette.

The original palm briquette is manufacturing into 70-80mm diameter. Through practical application, we notice many of the briquette being wasted as incomplete combustion happened in the biomass chamber.

Hollow Type EFB Palm Briquette.

The dense inner part is the area always is hard in combustion because of insufficient air flow. In order to improve the situation, pressed machine has been re-design whereby the briquette comes with an hollow ID. The hollow type of EFB briquette does help the improve of combustion.

Smaller size EFB palm briquette.

25mm diameter is one of the smaller size briquette. EFB palm fibre length has been studied and calculated before the 25mm diameter being determined. The 25mm EFB palm briquette is one of the optimum briquetting process which able to maintain smoother briquetting process.

Why 25mm EFB Briquette?

The 25mm EFB briquette is developed with a few objectives:

Suitable to most biomass input grating system.

The smaller of briquette is definitely more forgiving while coming to biomass boiler input grate system. Most of the industrial biomass boiler is able adapting to this new size.

Optimum in briquetting process.

25mm is the balance between briquette manufacturer and user. The dry EFB fibre can pressed into EFB briquette with only shredded process.

Energy retention in combustion process.

The briquette is able to retain heat during the combustion process while also ensure complete combustion, waste of incomplete briquette is minimize.

Who needs 25mm EFB Briquette?

EFB briquette or palm briquette is always a good energy source for biomass power plant. The existing biomass plant who using larger briquette can easily converted to 25mm diameter EFB briquette without any changing in process.

Biomass boiler who currently using palm kernel shell, shredded EFB fibre or pellet are suitable for this EFB briquette.

We welcome any inquiry about this 25mm diameter EFB briquette.

February 17, 2013

Coconut Shell

Coconut is one of the major agriculture commodity in Malaysia. The largest coconut estate located in Perak state Bagan Datoh area. The tall coconut tree has many application, coconut milk

becomes the major composition for food beverage, the coconut water is a refreshment drink, the fibre on the coconut is a good material for mattress, and the coconut shell is a good source for active carbon or charcoal.

Many coconut estates has converted to oil palm estate, however there still have substantial area of coconut tree in the area to support the coconut related business.

General Introduction of Coconut Shell

The outer coconut fibre will be removed and left the enclose hard coconut shell. The hard coconut shell will chop in half. The white colour coconut fresh will be removed for retrieving coconut milk, this left the half coconut shell.

The outer area of the hard coconut shell is yellowish in colour and inner area may attach with some left over white colour fresh.

Some Applications for Coconut Shell

The coconut shell used to be a biomass energy resource but it has better value now. The hard shell is a good nature fabricate into active carbon for water filtration. The carbonized coconut shell will go through grinding in order to becomes activated carbon.

Another application is converting the coconut shell to charcoal. The coconut shell charcoal is a porous substance that has been used for air filter.

Supply of Coconut Shell

DST is supplying the coconut shell to local and worldwide market. Our coconut shell will be packed in 20kg bag which ready for shipment.

We welcome any inquiry about coconut shell.

February 15, 2013

Biomass Glossary

Anaerobic digestion: Degradation of organic matter by microbes in the absence of oxygen to produce methane and carbon dioxide

Bagasse: Residue remaining after extracting a sugar-containing juice from plants like sugar cane

Biodiesel: A biodegradable transportation fuel for use in diesel engines. Biodiesel is produced through the transesterification of organically-derived oils or fats. It may be used either as a replacement for or as a component of diesel fuel.

Bioenergy: The production, conversion, and use of material directly or indirectly produced by photosynthesis (including organic waste) to manufacture fuels and substitutes for petrochemical and other energy-intensive products.

Biofuels: Biofuels: Liquid fuels and blending components produced from biomass feedstocks, used primarily for transportation. Biomass converted to liquid or gaseous fuels such as ethanol, methanol, methane, and hydrogen.

Biogas: A gaseous mixture of carbon dioxide and methane produced by the anaerobic digestion of organic matter.

Biomass: Biomass is any organic matter including forest and mill residues, agricultural crops and wastes, wood and wood wastes, animal wastes, livestock operation residues, aquatic plants, and municipal and industrial wastes

Capacity – The power/products that a machine or system can produce or generate safely.

Effluent: The liquid or gas discharged from a process or chemical reactor, usually containing residues from that process.

Feedstock: Raw material used for the generation of bioenergy and the creation of other bioproducts.

Gasification: A chemical or heat process to convert a solid fuel to a gaseous form

Grid: An electric utility company’s system for distributing power,

-Grid connection – Joining a plant that generates electric power to a utility system so that electricity can flow in either direction between the utility system and the plant.

Kilowatt: A measure of electrical power equal to 1,000 watts. 1 kW = 3412 Btu/hr

Landfill gas: Biogas produced from the natural degradation of organic material in landfills

Municipal solid waste: Residential solid waste and some nonhazardous commercial, institutional, and industrial wastes

Pyrolysis: The thermal decomposition of biomass at high temperatures (greater than 400° F, or 200° C) in the absence of air. The end product of pyrolysis is a mixture of solids (char), liquids (oxygenated oils), and gases (methane, carbon monoxide, and carbondioxide) with proportions determined by operating temperature, pressure, oxygen content, and other conditions

Residues, Biomass: Byproducts that have significant energy or products potential from processing all forms of biomass.

Thermochemical conversion: The use of heat to change substances chemically to produce energy products

Transesterification: A chemical process which reacts an alcohol with the triglycerides contained in vegetable oils and animal fats to produce biodiesel and glycerin

Waste transfer stations: Facilities where municipal solid waste is unloaded from collection vehicles and briefly held while it is reloaded onto larger long-distance transport vehicles for shipment to landfills or other treatment or disposal facilities

February 13, 2013

Palm Pellet Choices

There are many variety of palm pellet available in biomass market, namely EFB pellet, Mesocarp pellet, oil palm tree trunk pellet. Among all, EFB pellet is widely known in the market. Apart from the palm pellet, there is also palm briquette.

The differences of Palm Pellet

The main difference for various type of palm pellet is named after difference raw material used.

EFB Pellet.

The raw material for EFB pellet is empty fruit bunch discarded from crude palm oil mill.

Mesocarp pellet.

Mesocarp is not a commonly know term by majority. Mesocarp fibre stands for the fibre from the oil palm fruit. This is a short fibre.

Trunk pellet.

The raw material is oil palm tree trunk after demolish from the oil palm estate. In ordinary condition, oil palm estate will carry out re-planting after the oil palm tree reach 20 years, the demolish palm tree trunk can also send to pelleting factory for doing trunk pellet.

Palm Pellet Pelleting Process

Regardless any oil palm waste material, the waste will go through series a comprehensive pelleting process in order to manufacture quality pellet product. The pelleting process could be simplified to crushing, drying, pelleting, cooling and packing. For details elaboration, please refer to palm pellet pelleting process.

Why Malaysia becomes Famous Palm Pellet Manufacturer

Malaysia is a country with rich of oil palm product. EFB contribute the major portion of overall oil palm waste. There is 20 million ton of EFB available in Malaysia, most of the abundance EFB being used as raw biomass material or retrieving long fibre for mattress or fibre board.

Due to the constrain and increase in fossil fuel price, we are seeing the needs for converting EFB into palm pellet. Palm pellet is a more efficient heating energy compare to raw EFB. There are several well establish palm pellet manufacturer in Malaysia and we estimate 1 million ton of palm pellet per year suppling to the market.

Apart from the raw material availability, technical and R&D are another 2 major factors making Malaysia a palm pellet manufacturer in this district. Malaysia government or MPOB has invested substantial amount every year in researching and developing new application.

Oil palm waste has becomes an importance biomass commodity and it derivative product such as EFB fibre, palm pellet, palm briquette will more suitable for oversea market. Palm fibre contribute a huge portion of biomass energy in Malaysia.

DST is supplying biomass commodity such as palm pellet, efb pellet, palm briquette and palm kernel shell to worldwide market. We welcome any enquiry about your biomass needs.

February 7, 2013

Biomass Energy Resource from Malaysia

Even though Malaysia is a fossil fuel export country, but this does not stop the country from committing in developing renewable energy. Malaysia is a country rich in biomass energy resource, many materials can easily convert to biomass.

There are several common biomass renewable energy in Malaysia, such as palm pellet, EFB pellet, EFB, palm kernel shell, wood chip and saw dust pellet. In this article, we will discuss slightly more about the prospect for each biomass energy resource in Malaysia.

Biomass Energy Resources in Malaysia

EFB

EFB stands for empty fruit bunch discarded from palm oil mill. The EFB will go through pressed and shredded process before it can be used as biomass power plant. The shredded efb will always high in moisture and not favourable for shipping.

Palm kernel shell

Or in abbreviation PKS. The palm kernel shell is a good biomass resource with high calorific value, low moisture and easy transportation and handling. Unfortunately the supply of palm kernel shell is saturated. A large portion of palm kernel shell has been used at local Malaysia market.

Mesocarp Fibre

This short and dry fibre is favourable in biomass for heat retrieve, however the volume is small and unable to support the biomass industry.

Rice Hust

This is the husk salvage from rice mill. The rice husk is light and having high silica content. Not very suitable for biomass. Perhaps the light weight also not favourable for biomass boiler.

Coconut fibre

Most of the coconut plantation in Malaysia has been converted to oil palm estate, hence the coconut fibre is shrinking from year to year. It left very limited coconut fibre available in the market. Coconut fibre has not been used as biomass purpose.

Wood chip

Malaysia is a country cover with wood lodge. The left over wood will send to crushing process for chopping it into chip form. Wood chip is a renewable energy commodity however the re-planting is taking longer time before the tree mature. The wood chip volume is at decreasing stage meanwhile price is getting higher.

Wood pellet

The raw material of wood pellet is saw dust, so it also name as saw dust pellet. Wood pellet is resemble as wood chip. It provides similar heating effect and function as wood chip. However the price of wood pellet is getting higher.

EFB pellet

This is the new pellet product manufacturer at Malaysia. The shredded EFB will go through EFB pelletize process for making EFB pellet. EFB pellet consider relatively new as the biomass commodity for biomass market. Due to it availability, we foresee EFB pellet will become one of the major biomass energy choices in the market.

Malaysia is the country rich in tree and many others agriculture commodities, many commodities has been widely used as the biomass energy resources in Malaysia. Oil palm is one of the larger agriculture products and many researches / application has developed for converting the by-product of palm oil waste into biomass commodity. The prospect of oil palm related biomass energy resource is bright as it has becomes major sustainable energy in Malaysia and world wide market,