Wood chips compaction: First energetic analysis

The need to mitigate climate change and the progressive fossil fuel exhaustion have engendered a great interest for renewable fuels. This boosted the demand for wood fuel in all industrialized Countries creating a considerable business opportu6548 Alessio Facello et al. nity for the different stakeholders of the forestry sector. To increase the efficiency of the entire wood fuel supply chain, it is necessary to reduce the cost of harvesting, processing and transportation. One possible way to cut the handling costs is the densification of the chips. This paper reports the results of a study conducted on the densification process of chips, with particular focus on the demand of energy required by the process and on the density achieved. The investigation has been carried out on chips from hybrid poplar (PC) chestnut (CC), and a mixture of spruce and eastern white pine (MC) at different pressures (20, 30, 50, 80 and 110 MPa). The study pointed out that average values for density ranges between 546-898, 559-1082 and 543-913 kg m for PC, CC and MC respectively. Specific energy demand ranges between 22.5-58.1, 18.8-43.3 and 19.4-50.2 kJ kg for PC, CC and MC respectively.