Study of Corn Crop Residue Pelletising in a Semi-industrial System
摘要
Within the framework of a green and circular economy, the valorisation of agricultural residues plays a fundamental role, particularly in highly extended crops such as corn. In particular, such valorisation becomes especially important when the residue has a subsequent use as biofuel. In the present work, a feasibility study has been carried out on the production of pellets from corn crop residues for consumption in domestic boilers, using a semi-industrial pelletizing system. For this purpose, and starting from the specific residue of the corn cob waste, different scenarios of mass flow input of the residue and water input during the pelletizing process have been tested. After the tests carried out, it was concluded that it is necessary to add water during the process in order to obtain type A pellets according to the ISO quality standard. It has also been detected that there is an optimum mass flow to produce high quality pellets, and that values below or above the established range provide insufficient quality.