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Recently, there was anincrease in demand of biomass pellets as an alternative energy source. However,it is necessary to reduce the size of granular materials during the pelleting process.The size reductionof eucalyptus bark occurs in the industrialprocessing of biomass pellets production, using a hammer milltogether with three sieve sizes of 3, 4, and 5 mm and the sieve speeds of 900, 1000, 1100, and 1200 rpm, respectively, which have beenexamined at a feed rate of 80 kg/h. The aims of this study were to determine theimportant parameters, namely rotational speed, to determine suitable sieve sizefor reducing the size of eucalyptus bark, and to analyze energy usage in thesize reduction process by using a hammer mill. The results have shown that using a 5 mm sieve size at 900 rpm sievespeed resulted in the best operating conditions in order to offer the highestcapacity and lowest specific energy consumption. Moreover, the average particle size of 0.15mm was an acceptable value. This study could be very beneficial in thedevelopment process to produce biomass pellets. |
