plan for.” Brick adds that factoring in the landings is also important. “Where are you located, and what sized equipment can you get in your landings? Grinders, traditionally, are long compared to chippers and some of the landings aren’t big enough to support that. Chippers are a little bit more compact. Where a grinders conveyor could add 20 feet or more onto the machine’s footprint.” MAINTENANCE FACTOR A review of your existing fleet is an important factor in a purchase decision. Photo courtesy CBI. ally leave them behind, but they don’t feed into a chipper very well. With a grinder however, the feed system allows them to feed through just fine,” Brick says. “In a modern forest that’s been planted and is set up to harvest on cycles, you don’t neces-sarily want all this logging slash left be-hind. Burning it out in the woods isn’t a good option. So, with a grinder, you can process it for use in biomass plants that are designed to handle this type of material.” This is also true for other types of pow-er generation, like district energy systems, for example. “It really comes down to the end prod-uct. If a biomass system features bins with the right slopes and conveyor belts and au-gers that aren’t too narrow, down sized ma-terial from a grinder works very well. That means a waste material can be turned into energy or heat,” Brick says. Another advantage of having a grinder is its ability to be used in a diverse number of markets. “A grinder is a much more versatile piece of equipment,” Gilmour adds. “Let’s say a customer’s business diversifies, they will have the ability to utilize that machine in a wider spectrum and range of materi-al types. We have had operators purchase a grinder for woody biomass and later use the same machine to process C&D right through to wind turbine blades. Several manufacturers offer machines that can be reconfigured from grinding to chipping ap -plications or vice versa.” KNOW YOUR FLEET When deciding on a chipper or grinder to purchase, Brick says reviewing your exist-ing fleet is also important. “A blower discharge is a defining fea -ture of a typical chipper, which allows cov-ered trailers to be filled from the back end. So, if the rest of your business is already set up around chip vans, a grinder may in-volve additional changes to your operation. A grinder typical features a conveyor dis-charge, which loads trailers from the side. This is something that you would need to Brick says that grinders, in general, have fewer maintenance requirements than a chipper. “The knives on a chipper have to be sharp. You’re going to want to start out the day with sharp knives. And in gener-al, you’re sharpening them at noon for the second half of the day to keep them sharp and efficient. If you have clean wood, that might not apply. But if you have dirty wood, those knives are getting dull. Once they start getting dull, you’re not making that nice defined product, you’re making a stringier product with less defined length,” he says. “Depending on the particular applica-tion you’re in, you’re always going to have to go in there and check and make sure ev-erything is good,” Gilmour adds. “But the actual going in there to do physical work is much more spread out on a grinder than a chipper.” THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE RIGHT JOB At the end of the day, both grinders and chippers have a place in the world of woody biomass applications. “In Ireland, we say, ‘horses for cours-es.’ There’s a perfect horse for every race-course. And there’s no one perfect horse EXPERIENCE THE BENEFITS OF MOISTTECH'S Automated Moisture Control Sensor on the Production Line CONSTANT MONITORING Allows for a constant, non-contact solution to moisture measurement directly on the production line in real time CLOSED LOOP Measuring moisture directly on the production line produced instant, accurate data that can be easily communicated to a PLC -creating a closed loop process IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENTS [email protected] / www.moisttech.com A MoistTech system provides improved product quality, lower waste and energy costs, process optimization, increased plant efficiency, dryer control and reduced downtime 18 Canadian BIOMASS CB_Moisttech_Winter23_CSA.indd 1 WINTER 2023 2023-02-06 1:13 PM
Canadian Biomass Winter 2023: Page 18
