UBC’s BBRG to hold pellet workshop in Vancouver

During the past 10 years, BBRG has
conducted extensive research on wood pellet production, storage, handling, life
cycle analysis, and characterization of the new generation of torrefied pellets. In
2011, with assistance from NSERC Pacific, BBRG organized a 2-day workshop on updates on science and engineering in the practice of biomass densification. It was well received by industry members with more than 100
attendees from BC, North America and Europe.

As a follow up, the BBRG is
organizing a 1.5 day Workshop in conjunction with WPAC's
Annual General Meeting to be held November 18-20 in Vancouver. The BBRG
Workshop is organized in two parts. Part 1 will consist of lectures and visual
electronic boards (electronic posters) on Monday November 18, 2013 at the
Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle, the venue for WPAC's meeting. Part 2 will be held on the afternoon
of Wednesday November 20, at UBC, where attendees will participate in research
on aspects of wood pellets and feedstock engineering, including the new biomass
gasification plant on campus.

The BBRG workshop will present the latest research
and development on wood pellets and feedstock engineering research at UBC and from
around the world, especially the latest ISO standards and practices in Europe.  Topics to be covered
include:

• Self heating initiation and spread of heat in wood
  pellet storage and ways of storage design and management to mitigate it.
• Calorific value and the age of pellets vs. storage temperature and
  moisture content
• Torrefaction kinetics and methods of making durable pellets
• Comparative life cycle analysis for regular and second generation
  pellets and sustainability certificates
• Innovations in online measuring of biomass compositional properties.
• Will it be feasible to protect individual wood pellets from moisture
  ingress?
• Steam torrefaction vs. dry torrefaction, which is the winner?
• Does pelletization affect conversion of pellets to liquid fuels (boil
  oil and ethanol)?
• Opportunities to reduce the pellet cost
  using blends of low quality feedstock
• Safe
  transportation of pellets based on the IMO project (self-heating and the
  flammability tests).
• Assessment
  of durability and sieve size (1/8" vs. 3.15 mm)

For more information, visit the UBC Biomass website.