Bandit Beast recyclers are playing a part in the expanding international biomass fuel markets by reducing wood and grassy materials, the company said last week.
For more than a decade, Bandit’s whole tree chippers and Beast recyclers have played a role in utilizing unwanted wood waste for wood fuel. Recently, the Beast has been used to reduce various grasses into useable biomass fuel. Several diesel-powered Beast recyclers have been working in Poland processing grasses into biomass fuel for approximately a year, and a new electric-powered Beast will go into operation in November to convert baled grasses into usable biomass fuel.
Artur Glowa of Zak³ad Urz¹dzania i Utrzymania Zieleni, Bandit’s dealer in Poland, said, “In our experience, there are three types of related material: straw bales that are crunchy and relatively easy to grind; barley or wheat straw bales are a bit harder to grind, and the most difficult to grind are grass and hay bales.” Glowa has demonstrated Bandit’s Beast recyclers in a number of applications over the years, but grinding grass is a relatively new application, and is proving very successful.
A 700-hp Model 3680 Beast is currently supplying grasses for a cellulose paper plant in Swiecie, Poland. The plant uses the ground grassy material to fire a boiler that supplies steam and electricity to the plant.
Beast recyclers are also being used in tough grass grinding applications. One power plant located in Opele, Poland, had a large supply of wet straw that could not be processed by any other machine.
“They asked us to try to process the wet straw with our equipment to make a product with a certain size requirement,” said Glowa, who used a 540-hp Model 3680 Beast recycler with a 3-inch diamond screen and a combination of shingle, carbide and butcher fan teeth to produce about 12 to 14 tons per hour. The ground grassy material was then fed to the power plant.
“Because of our success grinding the wet straw, we are now testing a Beast that will be used as the primary reduction machine in a straw pellet application,” Glowa said.
Remus, Mich.-based Bandit Industries offers a complete line of hand-fed chippers, stump grinders, whole tree chippers and horizontal grinders.
