Pressed digestate solids

[DGC1]

has anyone tried mixing 30-35% DM pressed solids with woodchip and feeding to biomass boiler?
Or any boilers be fit to burn it neat?
--
The solids here are 95% rye straw so I would think it would have good calorific value.
--
We looked at briquetting machine but too much capex, energy use and needed 85% DM material to operate

 

[Whynot]

It's not on the register, yet.........
We dry digestate and also separate and dry the solid fraction.
Would have about 1000t a year to sell, so would be interested in selling as fuel. Currently using as fertiliser.

 

[Dave645]

The likes of Drax power station import thousands of tonnes of wood pellet to burn, talk to the likes of them, they would maybe do the science bit and test if it made a good fuel, then maybe if they like it they can take it bulk and pellet it up them selves.
If you want to test your selves, get a kg of wood chip pellets, and the same of yours, then use them to heat water, measure the temperature the water reaches for each you can then compare it to wood pellet.
You need the same amount of water each time measure temp before and during and after for each, if you hit boiling point restart with smaller amounts of fuel, temperature rises can be turned into energy output.
Also time taken to burn.
The actual amount you burn is not important t just needs to be the same weight and create a noticeable effect to water tempratures, use a digital temperature gauge. The results will give you the value, of what you have got.

 

[thesilentone]

At this time, the digestate cannot be burned, and neither it should be.

The dry fraction is a perfect soil conditioner, and should be used as such. Put more effort / energy into creating a market.

 

[DGC1]

At this time, the digestate cannot be burned,
IF it's possible to burn it what would be stopping us from using it?
Or are you saying that it's simply not practically possible to burn it at this point in time?

Re your second point
I tend to agree but it's haulage back to field works fine to the point where distance becomes too great. What's running through my mind is to haul & spread say 3/4 of it & cover all the local land and burn the remaining 1/4 that would be getting hauled further afield to create base heat... & who knows over time.... electric for the plant.
As things stand energy that could be exported or used for other purpose I.e pasteurisation etc gets used to cover base load and surely this adds a justification into the burning vs spreading argument?