1.8 to 2.4 T/H Beet Pulp Dryer in Russia

The customer's management team realized they had a volume problem. They produce more pulp than the local feed market can consume.

Their solution was to dry the pulp to a lower moisture target - 8% instead of 12% - and then pelletize it for biomass fuel.

Beet pulp pellets have an energy content of about 4,200 kcal/kg, comparable to wood pellets.

The market for biomass fuel in Russia is growing, especially in regions that have switched from coal to pellet heating.

The customer identified buyers in Moscow and St. Petersburg who were already importing wood pellets from Belarus.

They could sell beet pulp pellets at a discount to wood pellets and still make a good margin.

But there was a problem. Standard beet pulp dryers are designed to reach 12% moisture, not 8%.

Getting to 8% requires higher outlet temperatures and longer retention times.

The customer's existing supplier told them it could not be done with their standard equipment.

That is when they called us.

The Technical Challenge of 8% Moisture

Drying beet pulp to 8% moisture is not easy.

At around 12% moisture, the pulp starts behaving differently. It becomes more brittle and dustier.

The fibers begin to break apart.

If the temperature is too high, the pulp can scorch.

If the retention time is too long, the pulp can over-dry and become hydrophobic - meaning it will not absorb water later, which is bad for pellet binding.

We ran tests on the customer's wet pulp samples.

The results showed that 8% moisture was achievable, but it required three modifications to our standard dryer design:

1. First, the drum needed a longer retention zone. We added 4 meters to the effective drying length compared to our standard model for the same throughput.
2. Second, the lifting flights needed to be redesigned to create a thinner material curtain. Thinner curtain means more surface area exposure and faster moisture removal.
3. Third, the exhaust system needed to handle higher dust loads. Dryer exhaust at 8% moisture contains significantly more fine particles than exhaust at 12% moisture.

The customer selected a modified φ1.8*20 beet pulp dryer with these three changes.

Here is the configuration:

The Pelletizing Line They Added Later

The customer did not buy a pellet mill from us. They sourced that locally from a Russian manufacturer.

But they asked us to design the dryer discharge to integrate seamlessly with a pellet mill.

This meant adding a cooling conveyor after the dryer to bring the pulp temperature down from 80°C to 35°C before pelletizing.

Hot pulp does not bind well into pellets.

The cooling conveyor is a simple belt with perforated deck and fans underneath.

It adds 12 meters to the overall line length but requires no additional power beyond the fans.

The customer built the cooling conveyor themselves using locally available materials based on our drawings.

The Fuel Situation in Lipetsk

The customer has access to a fuel source that is even cheaper than wood waste.

Lipetsk is a steel-producing region. There are several metallurgical plants nearby that generate blast furnace gas as a byproduct.

This gas has a low heating value - about 800 kcal/m³ compared to 8,000 for natural gas - but it is essentially free.

The steel plants are required to dispose of it anyway.

The customer built a pipeline from a steel plant 4 kilometers away to their facility.

The gas is delivered at low pressure.

The burners on our dryers were modified to handle this low-BTU fuel by increasing the gas orifice size and adding a forced draft fan.

This modification added about $8,000 to the cost of each burner but eliminated fuel costs entirely.

Customer Feedback: The Biomars

After one full season of operation, the customer's technical director reported:

"The dryer achieved 8.2% moisture on our third test run.

We have since tuned it to consistently produce 7.9% to 8.1%.

The pellets we make from this material have tested at 4,180 kcal/kg, which is slightly lower than our target but acceptable.

We sold our first 500 tons to a greenhouse operation in Moscow Oblast at 6,800 rubles per ton.

The buyer tested the pellets and confirmed they burn cleaner than the wood pellets they were using.

Our only issue is dust.

The cyclone separator we installed is undersized for the fine particles at 8% moisture.

We are adding a baghouse filter next month.

The blast furnace gas works perfectly.

Our fuel cost for the season was zero except for the electricity to run the forced draft fan.

We are planning to add a second dryer next year for sunflower husks from a nearby oilseed plant."

What Else This Dryer Can Do in Russia

The customer has already identified that the same low-moisture drying capability can be applied to other materials.

1. Sunflower husks, which are abundant in southern Russia, can be dried to 6-8% moisture and pelletized for fuel.
2. Even sawdust from Russian forestry operations could be processed.

The key is the modified flight design and the higher temperature capability.

Shipping to Russia

The beet pulp dryer was shipped from Qingdao port to Port of St. Petersburg, Russia's primary Baltic gateway for industrial imports.

The equipment was transferred to rail at the port and shipped to Lipetsk, approximately 1,000 kilometers south.