1T/H RDF Pellet Machine in Brazil

Why a Single RDF Pellet Machine, Not a Whole Line?

Here’s the thing. This cooperative already owned a primary shredder and a magnetic separator. They had a small hammer mill for size reduction. They even had an old conveyor system.

Buying a complete pellet production line would mean throwing away half their existing equipment. That doesn’t make financial sense—especially for a cooperative watching every real. So they went shopping for a single RDF pellet press. Just the machine that forms the pellets. Everything else they would adapt or keep using.

They told me, “We don’t need a turnkey solution. We just need something that can handle mixed waste without jamming every ten minutes.” That’s exactly why they came to us. Most European machines they looked at were too sensitive to contaminants.

One Italian brand required feedstock with less than 5% inorganics. Their material had maybe 10-12% glass fines and tiny metal bits no magnet could catch. Our ring-die design handles that better. Not perfectly—nothing handles metal perfectly—but better.

What Raw Materials Are They Actually Using?

Let me be specific here. Brazil generates about 80 million tons of urban waste annually, and only a small fraction is recycled. This cooperative processes roughly 50 tons per day of incoming waste. From that, they extract:

• Paper and cardboard (about 30%)
• Plastics (HDPE, PP, LDPE – around 25%)
• Textiles (old clothes, rags – 15%)
• Wood waste from construction sites (10%)
• The rest is organics and rejects

The RDF feedstock they are feeding into our MZLH420 model is a blend of rejected non-recyclable plastics, textile fibers, and fine wood particles. All of it is pre-shredded to under 30mm. They add no binder.

The natural lignin in the wood fibers and the thermoplastic nature of the plastics help bind the pellets. Moisture content stays between 12% and 16%. Any wetter, and the pellets fall apart. Any drier, and the machine produces too much dust.

Pellet size? They set the die to make 12mm diameter pellets. That’s the sweet spot for small industrial boilers in the region. Too small, and the pellets burn too fast. Too large, and they don’t fully combust in the grate furnaces used by local brick kilns and food processing plants.

What Did They Order Exactly?

They ordered two units of the MZLH420 RDF fuel pellet machine. No conditioner, no extra fat or liquid addition system. Just the bare machine with the forced feeder. Why two units? Redundancy. RDF production is not like wood pelleting. You get downtime.

A piece of metal sneaks through, the die cracks, you stop. With two machines, they can run one while servicing the other. Their target output is 1.0 to 1.2 tons per hour per machine, but realistically, running mixed waste, they see about 0.8 to 1.0 tons per hour. They run 16 hours a day, two shifts. That gives them roughly 25-30 tons of RDF pellets daily.

Specs for the MZLH420 RDF pellet machine they purchased:

• Main motor: 90kW
• Breaking feeder motor: 3kW
• Forced feeder motor: 1.5kW
• Ring die inner diameter: 420mm
• Pellet diameter: 12mm (they also bought a spare die for 15mm in case they find buyers who want larger)

Where Is This RDF Pellet Machine in Brazil Being Used?

The installation is in the industrial outskirts of São Paulo, near the city of Guarulhos. That area is a nightmare for waste disposal. But it’s also full of factories that need heat. Their pellets go to:

• A corrugated box plant that replaced 30% of its natural gas with RDF pellets
• Two brick kilns in the region that used to burn illegal firewood from deforestation
• A small lime processing facility that needed a cheap alternative to imported petroleum coke

This is not a power plant. This is distributed industrial heat. That’s the real market for RDF pellets in Brazil right now. Large-scale waste-to-energy incinerators are almost nonexistent here. But tens of thousands of boilers in factories? Those are hungry for cheap fuel.

Why Our RDF Pellet Machine Instead of a Local Fabricator?

The cooperative compared three options:

1. A locally fabricated flat-die pellet mill – cheap but unreliable for abrasive RDF material
2. A used European ring-die machine – lower price but no spare parts availability in Brazil
3. Our new MZLH420 – higher upfront cost but with local support through our distributor in Curitiba

They chose us because of the forced feeder. RDF material is fluffy and doesn’t gravity-feed well. Without a forced feeder, you get bridging and inconsistent pellet quality. That was the deciding factor. The local machines didn’t even offer that option.

Also, we provided something no one else did: a die and roller setup guide specifically for high-plastic-content RDF. Too many roller adjustments, and the plastic smears instead of compresses.

Too loose, and the pellets are crumbly. We spent two days on-site during commissioning, dialing in the gap and the die compression ratio. The client later told me that guide alone saved them weeks of trial and error.

Shipping Details – From Qingdao to Santos

Both machines were shipped from our Qingdao factory in June. The nearest major port to São Paulo is the Port of Santos, about 70 km away. That’s Brazil’s busiest container port, handling everything from soybeans to machinery.

The total sea freight took 38 days including a transshipment in Singapore. We packed each MZLH420 in two reinforced 40-foot high-cube containers—one for the main body, one for the ring die, motor, and feeders. Customs clearance at Santos took longer than expected: 12 days. Brazil is not fast with import paperwork.

The cooperative hired a local customs broker who specialized in agricultural and industrial machinery. That made the difference.

Common Questions Buyers Ask When Looking for an RDF Pellet Machine

I talked to their plant manager last week. He told me three things he wished he had known before buying:

First, ring die wear is faster with RDF than with wood. The mixed material contains silica from dirt and glass fines. Their first die lasted only 900 hours. A wood pellet die might go 2,000 hours. They now keep two spare dies in stock and rotate them every 400 hours for maintenance.

Second, the forced feeder variable frequency drive (VFD) is critical. At startup, they run the feeder slow to avoid overloading the main motor. As the die warms up, they increase speed. Without the VFD, they had constant jams.

Third, pellet cooling matters more than they thought. Right out of the die, their RDF pellets are at 85-90°C. If you bag them hot, moisture condenses and pellets turn to mush. They built a simple counterflow cooler from a used grain auger and a fan. Not pretty, but it works.

What Makes This Machine Different for RDF Applications?

Let me be honest. Our MZLH series was originally designed for biomass—sawdust, rice husks, straw. For standard RDF pellet mill in Brazil applications, we had to adapt. The main changes we recommend for RDF buyers:

• Hardfaced ring dies with a wider compression ratio (1:5 to 1:6 instead of 1:4 for wood)
• Roller shells with a rougher surface texture to grab slippery plastic particles
• A magnetic separator right before the feed inlet (we don’t include it, but we force clients to add it)

The cooperative bought their own magnetic separator from a local supplier. We helped them position it. That single decision reduced die cracks by 80%.

The machine isn't perfect for RDF. No machine is. But it’s robust. The main bearing housing is oversized compared to Chinese competitors.

The gearbox uses hardened helical gears, not cheap spurs. When they inevitably push too much wet material through, the shear bolt on the feeder breaks before the gearbox does. That’s a feature, not a flaw.

Customer Feedback – Straight from Their Production Manager

About two months after commissioning, I called to check in. Their production manager, let’s call him Carlos (not real name), told me this:

“Look, the first week was hell. We broke two shear bolts on day one because our feedstock had hidden metal wires from shredded tires. Once we added the magnet, things settled. Now we run six days a week. The machines stop maybe once per shift for cleaning the die. But we expected that.

What surprised us is the power draw. The 90kW motor pulls close to full load when we feed plastic-rich material. We upgraded our electrical panel after the first month. That’s on us, not on RICHI Machinery.

But would we buy again? Yes. Our fuel cost is now 180 reais per ton of pellet. Natural gas here is 320 reais per equivalent energy. Even with maintenance and die changes, we save money. And the city pays us a small tipping fee to take the waste. So we get paid twice. That’s the real business.”

He also mentioned that a cement plant in Minas Gerais is testing their pellets as a partial coal replacement. If that works, they will need a third machine.

Is a Single RDF Pellet Machine Worth It for Your Operation?

Here’s what I tell customers in Brazil, Colombia, or Mexico who call about RDF. Don’t buy a full line if you already have shredding and drying. Buy the best RDF pellet machine you can afford, adapt your existing equipment, and start small.

The technology is not magic. You will have downtime. You will curse when a bolt breaks. But the economics work if your waste is cheap and your local fuel is expensive.

The cooperative in São Paulo proved that. They didn’t wait for a perfect setup. They bought two MZLH420s, learned by doing, and now supply RDF pellets for thermal energy to factories that used to burn fossil fuels. That’s a win for their business and a win for the environment.

If you are sitting on a mountain of waste and paying too much for energy, give us a call. We can talk about whether a single RDF pellet machine makes sense for your material.

No pressure. No perfect-line sales pitch. Just honest advice from people who have seen ring-die machines chew through plastics, textiles, and wood in real-world conditions.