Authors: Basavaraj Endigeri, Dr. Bharati Meti, M M Ganganallimath, Manisha Joshi, Mahalaxmi V Ingalagi
Abstract: Agricultural residue management is a major challenge due to the large quantity of crop residues generated during harvesting and the difficulties associated with their collection, transportation, storage, and utilization. Pelletization provides an effective method for converting loose agricultural residues into dense, uniform and easily transportable solid biofuel. Previous studies have investigated the effects of biomass moisture content, particle size, compression conditions, die speed, binders and machine operating parameters on pellet density, durability and energy consumption. Research on pellet-machine design has also demonstrated the potential for producing quality biomass pellets from different plant residues. However, conventional pelletization systems generally require the residues to be collected and transported to a separate processing facility. This project proposes an on-site agricultural residue management system in which a pelletizing unit is integrated with a harvesting machine. The proposed system aims to collect the residue generated during harvesting, process it through size reduction and conditioning, and immediately convert it into pellets at the field site. Such integration can reduce loose-residue handling, transportation requirements and residue accumulation in the field while improving the utilization of agricultural biomass as a renewable energy resource. The performance of the integrated system can be evaluated in terms of pellet production rate, specific energy consumption, pellet density, durability, moisture content, residue recovery efficiency and overall machine performance. The proposed approach provides a potential pathway toward decentralized and efficient management of agricultural residues through in-field pelletization.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22055142
