Switch grass pellets????

[cyclone]

Anyone here ever heard of pellets being made out switch grass? Any chemist know if this could be done????

 

[flamegrabber]

Yeah I've heard of it. Switch-grass is supposed to be a great bio-fuel in terms of availablity and cost *in the future".

It will only burn in a few stoves currently on the market. Maybe stove manufacturers will design new stove to burn it if it really takes off as a bio-fuel.

The other thing is that it has a higher-ash content than wood.

FG.

Anyone here ever heard of pellets being made out switch grass? Any chemist know if this could be done????

 

[Delta-T]

There are a lot of people working on the grass pellet. Flamegrabber is correct. Many stoves on the market just wont handle the ash content well. The initial problem with pelletizing grass is that it doenst want to stick together like sawdust. There is also a lot of work being done to pelletize all types of sillage (agricultural waste, corn stalks,peanut shells, and whatnot). Here in the U.S. we have billions of tons of these materials. It wont be long till these things come to market and I'm sure stove companies know this and are preparing.

 

[mtalea]

Anyone here ever heard of pellets being made out switch grass? Any chemist know if this could be done????

Energex makes a switch grass pellet,I already started a post on it entitled "these pellets"

I am waiting for the guy from energex to repost the stats of them,so far he hasnt..been a couple of weeks waiting already

 

[jawquin]

The grass is a bit high in ash content but does work in some stoves. Here is a link to some testing that was done a few yrs ago. Have the grass pellets died out?

http://www.grassbioenergy.org/res/pellet_stove_demo.asp#stove

 

[kinsmanstoves]

I have heard someone in western PA did make the switch grass pellets. I spoke to someone who was testing them and said they burned very fast but had a lot of heat. He said he did not care for the ones he burned. That is what I know.

Eric