With the construction of a second line in Oberweis, Hot'ts Pellets doubled its production capacity to 65,000 t per year. The requirements were a space-saving design and low-noise operation. "Despite the capacity doubling, the noise pollution for our neighbors did not increase," head of production Andreas Gerstmayr emphasizes. Both presses are located in 18 m high towers standing next to each other. The plant is running in a 3-shift operation and needs 82 kWh/t of pellets. The press of the Teccon line is provided by Salmatec and designed for industrial continuous operation.
One operator for the whole plant
The press with patented trimming device © Ulrike Knaus
At Hot'ts, the raw material is dried to a residual moisture of 10% and filled into the press tower by means of a hammer mill. The moisture content of the sawdust is controlled online – fully automatically. After conditioning with water and some of the native starch, the chippings are transported into the maturing container. After the soaking time has passed, the chippings are brought into the Salmatec press. It has a forced feed in the press door that distributes the chippings optimally between the press rolls (rollers) and the dies. Thanks to this controlled material feeding, the bearings are evenly loaded which significantly increases their lifespan. The service life of Salmatec rollers is roughly 2,5000 h on average. The pressed pellets fall onto a vibrating screen that separates pellets from dust. The excess length calibrator is used to adjust the length of the pellets.
Fully automatic operation
The identical press towers: the new one is on the right © Ulrike Knaus
Due to the high degree of automation of the system control it is possible to run the system with only 1 operator for both pellet lines. The two pellets presses by manufacturer Salmatec of the type Maxima 840 are equipped with maximum sensor monitoring such as the monitoring of roller temperatures, pressing room temperature and vibration measurement. When utilizing the machines for wood pellets production, manufacturer Salmatec uses a three-roller system which serves optimal distribution of power as well as load relief. A central lubrication system furthermore tends to all lubrication points and contributes to a longer service life. The average output capacity of every press is 5.3 t/h. Hot'ts Holzpellets has been a pioneer in pellets production since 1997 and is running three sites today. The company covers the delivery area from Munich to Eisenstadt in Austria.
