Host: The Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan
New pulverization technique of ligneous biomass was developed. Ligneous biomass was pulverized into micron order particles by using vibration mill. Pulverizing biomass, the combustibility, compatibility, reactivity and extractability would improve dramatically.
It was impossible to micronize fibers into microns by conventional pulverization equipments such as a hammer crusher and cutter mill, since wood fiber consists of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, is very strong. Although a freeze pulverizing method and an explosion method have been conducted recently, there are a lot of problems such as a low productivity and bad economical efficiency.
In this research, conifer and broadleaf tree were pulverized by the new pulverizing technique. It was appeared that two-stage pulverizing in series i.e., first, the material was pulverized by rods and then the produced wood powder was broken into the smaller particles by balls, was an effective method to produce fine particles. When using dried pine with moisture content of 3% as material, 23.0µm (50% particle diameter) was obtained easily and economically. The ligneous fibers were totally broken and the shape of the wood powder was spherical. Hence, the property of wood powder was also evaluated by aspect ratio and specific surface area.
Through this research, the vibration mill that is new pulverization technology not only can control the particle size and particle shape by changing pulverization media but also can produce the micron order particles in large quantities economically.
