Production of coal briquettes. Equipment for briquetting coal dust, brown coal and coke.

While various wood wastes in the form of sawdust and wood chips are quite easy to burn in long-burning boilers specially adapted for this, the situation is different with fine coal and dust. Anyone who has ever tried to fire a stove or boiler with small fractions of coal knows that half of the fuel is wasted, spilling through the grate into the ash pan, and the other half is sintered and blocks the access of air to the firebox. Because of this, the intensity of combustion is sharply reduced. At the same time, it is stupid to throw away such fuel, because it contains a lot of thermal energy. In such a situation, coal briquetting can help, which will be discussed in this article.

Briquetting of coal dust

Coal dust and debris are formed during the mining, storage and transportation of coal. An effective way to utilize coal dust is to process it into coal briquettes.

Coal briquettes are high-quality fuel with a moisture content of 10% and high strength. Due to their low humidity, the energy value of coal briquettes is superior to the original coal; the standard size and shape of briquetted coal increases its consumer qualities. Thus, briquetting coal dust
is one of the ways to attract investment in the coal mining industry.

Press for making fuel briquettes with your own hands

The purchase of ready-made equipment for the production of briquettes, depending on its capacity, will cost from 300 thousand to 1 million rubles.

Of course, for a private owner who wants to start producing this fuel purely for his own needs, such costs are impractical, since they will not pay off soon. It would be more correct to make a press from scrap materials, especially since there is nothing complicated in its design.

You can build the necessary equipment from scratch or use ready-made mechanisms.

Homemade machine

Making an installation from scratch

You can create the significant force required to compress raw materials using:

• lever (you can act on it with your own weight);
• screw mechanism.

A lever press can even be made from wood; for a screw press, you will definitely need steel blanks and a lathe.

A screw extruder (press for sawdust) can theoretically also be made with your own hands, and some craftsmen have even succeeded, but such an undertaking is very expensive due to the complex processing of parts and the need to use special high-quality steel.

Heating with pellets is not only economical, but also environmentally friendly, because recycled materials are used as fuel. You can make or convert a solid fuel tank for pellets.

You will find detailed instructions for making a solid fuel boiler with your own hands.

Are you unsure about choosing a pellet boiler? Follow this link: you will find reviews from real users about these boilers. Read and draw conclusions.

Manufacturing a press based on a ready-made mechanism

To make briquettes, you can use some device that is more accessible than a real machine - a jack or a small hydraulic press. All that remains is to equip it with a punch and a matrix.

It should be understood that any homemade press, even one made on the basis of a hydraulic jack, will not be able to develop the forces that ensure the release of lignin. Therefore, instead of it, third-party binders have to be added to the raw material.

In this capacity they use:

1. Cheap glue, for example, wallpaper.
2. Clay (add 1 part to 10 parts sawdust).
3. Soaked paper, including corrugated cardboard - the lignin contained in it, when in contact with moisture, exhibits its adhesive properties (this property of paper is used when spraying a heat insulator like "Ecowool").

Another difference from industrial technology is that the source material is not dried, but rather soaked in water - then the particles stick together better. Then the finished briquette is dried in the open air.

How to grind raw materials

In the hassle of making a homemade press, we must not forget about such an important stage in the production of briquettes as grinding the raw materials. It is very difficult to cut it by hand - mechanization is also necessary here

Some people make shredders themselves from an old activator washing machine - they install knives instead of the activator.

Another option is to purchase a rotary machine.

The purpose of this device is precisely to chop vegetation - summer residents use it to make fertilizers from leaves and grass.

Advantages of coal briquettes

Coal briquettes have the following advantages over original coal:

• Higher energy value (20-30%)
• Longer burning (4 times longer)
• Ash in powder form
• 22% less CO2 emissions
• Less sulfur emissions (less than 1% and can be controlled)
• Easier packaging, transportation, storage
• Ready for automatic feeding into the firebox
• Possibility of packaging for the consumer market
• Opportunities for export sales

Equipment for the production of coal briquettes

SP Bioresurs Technology LLC is the official representative in the Russian Federation of a French manufacturer of high-quality equipment for coal briquetting with a capacity of up to 100 t/h.

We offer our customers a complete set of turnkey equipment for the production of coal briquettes, consisting of:

• coal grinding and drying area
• binder addition area
• coal briquetting area
• systems for cooling, storage and packaging of coal briquettes

Briquetting coal at home

Industrial technology is not suitable for briquetting coal at home. The high price of equipment for the production of coal briquettes, high energy costs, and the need to obtain a huge number of permits from government agencies significantly increase the cost of the finished product. But for the purpose of heating a small private house, there is no need to organize large-scale production. To make 3-4 tons of briquettes (winter stock), it is quite possible to make do with improvised means.

Equipment for briquetting at home

The simplest method, which was well known to our great-grandfathers

:

• Coal dust is mixed with clay in a ratio of 10:1 with the addition of a small amount of water to form a thick mass. Clay is a safe binding component that will prevent the briquettes from falling apart. It is important to thoroughly mix all the components of the mixture. A construction mixer is often used for this purpose.
• Next, the solution is poured into molds. These can be either special containers or used equipment (old pots, buckets, boxes). If there are no containers, coal cakes can be formed by hand, as our ancestors did.
• After complete drying, the briquetted coal can be sent for storage.

Despite the fact that, according to production technology, the mixture is dried, during the home preparation of briquettes the mixture is moistened. In this case, homemade coal briquettes have the following distinctive features

:

• Imperfect shape.
• Different levels of humidity and, therefore, heat transfer.
• Low strength, which does not allow briquettes to be transported.

Homemade coal briquette
But these properties do not prevent low-cost products from burning well, especially compared to caked dust. This option is much more convenient and practical.

And if you still want to automate the process somehow, then you can follow the example of home craftsmen and independently make equipment similar to production equipment:

• A machine that allows you to make briquettes manually. Instructions on how to make a machine can be easily found on the Internet. A unit designed for home brick production is well suited for manual pressing. The materials that allow welding the frame are a profile pipe and a 40*40 mm corner. A receiving hopper is mounted on top. A manual mechanism is attached to the side for briquetting the mixture into rectangular or cylindrical products. Technology
  : Raw materials are crushed as much as possible. The fine fraction ensures the strength and quality of the briquette.
• Adding water will create a sticky mixture. It is acceptable to add clay in small quantities to slightly increase the ash content of the fuel.
• Next, the mixture is poured into a hopper, from where the mold is filled. The briquette is extruded by pressing a lever.
• The reverse movement of the lever causes the briquette to be pushed out of the mold. It is removed and placed in the sun to dry.

Technology for manufacturing coal briquettes without a binder
It is better to entrust the manufacture of the body, matrix, and auger to a good turner. It is important that the pulley diameters ensure a screw rotation speed of no more than 200 rpm. The motor must be grounded before connecting it to the household electrical network.

Production technology

:

• The raw materials are crushed and mixed with water.
• With the engine running, the mixture is loaded into the hopper.
• The emerging “sausages” are cut into pieces of the desired length and laid out on a rack to dry.

It is important to know that the presence of through holes in finished briquettes promotes better combustion and greater heat transfer.