The properties of wood pellets formed from biowaste

Waste biomass presents an energy source. However, a lot of waste biomass rots in landfills without further usage. Although it has an energy value and can be used for fuel production. One of the waste biomass is pine cones. They present waste products after seed harvesting. In this work, pine cones were compressed together with spruce sawdust into wood pellets. At first, pellets were created from pure spruce sawdust, then shredded pine cones were added in the content of 10 %, 20 %, 30 %, 40 %, and 50 %. The formed pellets were subjected to elemental and proximate analysis. Then calorific values and densities were also determined. In general, it is important to know the properties of the fuel with respect to its quality, potential applications, also power, and emission parameters. Based on the results it can be concluded that the carbon content decreases slightly with the increasing content of pine cones, the nitrogen content increases with the increasing content of pine cones, and calorific values decrease slightly with the increasing content of pine cones. Higher ash content was formed at samples with higher content of pine cones, specifically of wood pellets with 40 % and 50 % of the content of pine cones. Individual values of density are in the range from 1150.29 kg·m-3 to 1245.02 kg·m−3. The lowest density was found during the sample with 50 % of the content of pine cones.