Sawdust

About: Sawdust is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5526 publications have been published within this topic receiving 86499 citations. The topic is also known as: wood dust & hard wood dust.

Energy Efficient Pilot-Scale Production of Wood Fuel Pellets made from a Raw Material Mix Including Sawdust and Rapeseed Cake

Abstract: Presently, most fuel pellets are made from sawdust or shavings. In Sweden, these materials are used to the maximum extent. As the demand for pellets increases, the supply of sawdust will be insufficient and other raw materials or mixes of raw materials will be used. This work investigates sawdust mixed with rapeseed cake. The latter is a residual product from the production of chemically unmodified oil refined from cold-pressed rape oil. At the Department of Energy, Environmental and Building Technology at Karlstad University, Sweden, a complete pilot-scale pellet production unit is located. The pellets are produced and tested for mechanical durability, length, bulk density and moisture content according to the Swedish Standard for pellets. During production, the load current, the die pressure and the die temperature were measured along with other parameters. The main purpose was to examine how the mixture of rapeseed cake and pine sawdust affected the energy consumption of the pelletising machine and mechanical durability of mixed fuel pellets. The results show that the energy consumption decreased and the amount of fines increased with increasing rapeseed cake in the wood fuel pellets. These results indicate that we must compromise between a decrease in the use of energy and a decrease in durability.

Removal of arsenic (V) from aqueous solutions using chemically modified sawdust of spruce (Picea abies): Kinetics and isotherm studies

Abstract: Arsenic is a ubiquitous element in the environment and occurs naturally in both organic and inorganic forms. Under aerobic condition, the dominant form of arsenic in waters is arsenate, which is highly mobile and toxic. Arsenic poisoning from drinking water remains a serious world health issue. There are various standard methods for arsenic removal from drinking waters (coagulation, sorption, ion-exchange reactions or methods of reverse osmosis) and alternative methods, such as biosorption. Biosorption of arsenic from natural and model waters by native or chemically modified (with urea or ferric oxyhydroxides) plant biomass prepared from sawdust of Picea abies was studied. The kinetic of the adsorption process fitted well the pseudo second order adsorption model and equilibrium was achieved after 2 h. The results showed that biosorption was well described by both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The maximum biosorption capacity of the sawdust modified with ferric oxyhydroxides, evaluated by Langmuir adsorption model, was 9.259 mg/g, while the biosorption capacity of unmodified biosorbent or biosorbent modified with urea was negligible. The adsorption capacity is comparable to results published by other authors, suggesting that the prepared chemically modified biosorbent has potential in remediation of contaminated waters.