Have you seen those large crushers that grind material into small pieces? Those crushers are called hammer mill machines. They grind, granulate, and crush a wide range of raw materials.
You can use them for pelletizing corn stalks, straws, peanut shells, bean stalks, firewood, and other agricultural waste. Let us learn in detail how these machines work, how they are used, and what are their benefits.
Working Principle of Hammer Mill
In order to understand how a hammer mill works on biomass pellets, we first need to know its simple structure. Following are some important parts of the pellet machine:
- Lower body
- Upper body
- Sevier
- Feeder
- Rotor
- Discharging outlet
- Air fan
- Cyclone
Biomass hammer mill uses centrifugal force. This force crushes the raw wood or pellet in the crushing chamber. The crushing is done at a very high speed. Rotor centrifugal pressure and fan suction send the crushed powder through the mesh.
This biomass processing is repeated for the powder particles that are not able to pass through the screen until they are emitted through the screen.
Operate and Maintain Biomass Hammer
Once you understand the working principle of a machine, let us see how it is installed and works. Pin coupling is what drives the main shaft straight. Below the motor, you will see some orifices. These openings are directly mounted on the base. Foundation bolts are what keep the machine in place.
Along with the basic structure, the machine has many tools. Some of these tools are:
- Electric Tools
- Safety Devices
- Startup Devices
The main shaft rotates in the direction of feeding. You can control the direction of feeding by the feeding guide devices. The position switch will automatically decide the direction of rotation for the motor.
Once the mill is set up, it must be leveled, and you need to tighten the foundation nuts. The machine must be mounted on steel frames or concrete bases, which must have holes for the size of the output hole.
Types of Hammer Mill for Biomass Pellet
There are many kinds of hammer mills, depending on the precise task. Here, we will discuss some of the hammer mill styles you can choose from:
1- Lump Breakers
Lump Breakers are different from other pellet mills because of their structure. They don’t have swinging hammers. In them, you will find fixed hammers. We call these hammers a comb. These machines are used to smoothen paste or powder.
If you want to get a specific particle size, the particles are passed through the comb. You can use this hammer mill for dry chemicals, sugar, and cement.
2- Full Circle Screen
A pellet machine with a rotating screen used to improve particle extraction is called a full-circle screen. You can use it to decrease the size of lightweight components. It is used for grasses, grain, sawdust, corn, and spices.
Remember, don’t add any sticky raw material to this pellet plant. This is because the material could stick to the screen.
3- Gravity Discharge
To crush materials like metal, brass, dry chemicals, or resins, we use gravity discharge. It has a rectangular steel chamber. In this chamber, there are swinging hammers that are mounted on a shaft. The shaft rotates at a high speed. This hammering helps reduce the size of the hammer.
In this mill, the particle-on-particle contact can also cause a decrease in size or contact in the grinding chamber with the breaker plate. The discharge from this hammer mill is then subjected to gravity.
4- Other Types
In addition to the above types, we have horizontal in-feed and pneumatic discharge hammer mills. All of these machines are available as large hammer mills and small hammer mills. You can choose any one type based on their specific features and uses.
Why Would You Use A Hammer Mill?
Like all other machines, these pellet-making mills have many uses. Some of the common uses of these pellet plants or feed pellets are discussed below:
- You can use them for food product grinding. You can use it to grind a lot of different legumes. They can be used to grind groundnuts, beans, and soya nutshells. To remove hard shells, you need a machine that has low hammer blows.
- These diesel engine hammer mills help decrease the use of fuel sources like biofuels, biomass, corn, coal, and wood. Hence, they help create renewable energy sources.
- They are also used for recycling and scrapping purposes. In industries like mechanical engineering and automobile manufacturing, they help a lot. They are used to crush and hammer automobile parts that cannot be repaired. Once crushed, they are molten, which is used for recycling and new production.
- A hammer mill can be used in the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical businesses to break down things quickly. Little pieces can dissolve more quickly during the process, making the mixture go faster.
- There are different kinds of hammer mills that can be used in the chemical and pharmaceutical businesses to make powder. The items need to be crushed in a hammer mill to make a medium-fine powder with the right grain size.
You can also use hammer mills to make things smaller, like medical grains. A certain amount of these grains needs to be put into a pill.
What are the Operating Conditions of a Hammer Mill?
To make sure that the hammermill is working well, you need to remember some details. First of all, use the machine at the right tip speed. You need to make sure that there is sufficient screen area for the applied horsepower.
The machine should have a proper hammer pattern, and the hammer should be placed in the correct position relative to the screen.
There are three basic areas of hammermill maintenance:
- You should replace items such as screens, hammers, and pins on a routine basis.
- Parts like flow directors regrind chamber, and bearings need long-term and regular maintenance.
- Long-term maintenance is needed for parts like screen carriage, wear liners, and couplings.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed all the details about the role of hammer mills in pellet production. If you want to know more about where you can find the best pellet machines you can connect with our experts for personalized insights and guidance. You can start your journey towards sustainable energy by joining us.