Willomass. Goes with the flow.
Precision-cut willow woodchips as solid biofuel for clean energy and biochar production
About Us
We are a startup working in research and innovation of SRC (Short Rotation Coppice ) willow biomass for residential heating , micro cogeneration and production of natural fibers. We have several patented technical solutions for manufacturing precision cut woodchips from Short Rotation Coppice Willow and for generating clean electricity and producing biochar. The willow woodchips made with our processor have consistent precise dimensions and shapes and can be used for combustion in any small or medium size pellet stove pellet boiler or biomass microCHP unit.
You might ask: woodchips in pellet stoves? how is that possible? Well, it is very much possible to burn OUR woodchips in your wood pellet stove or boiler without any hardware change or modification on the equipment.
Innovation
Willomass is a patented , special woody granular biofuel that can replace or complement any type of wood pellet in any pellet appliance .We know very well that regular woodchips made with industrial wood chippers are not suitable to be combusted in pellet stoves or boilers. Regular woodchips, if used in pellet appliances will eventually block or damage the transport auger of the appliance. Regular woodchips do not flow like pellets, so the fuel hopper of a pellet stove will eventually clog with woodchips. However, precision willow woodchips made with our technology will work as well as wood pellets because they flow like pellets and burn like pellets. Also, these precision willow woodchips can be blended or mixed with wood pellets to be used in micro gasification equipment.
Our patented Willocharr biomass Micro CHP ( Combined Heat and Power ) unit using high-quality feedstock – as our precision willow woodchips or Willomass – can deliver electricity and heat with high efficiency and low cost with activated biochar as valuable byproduct
Services
We offer innovative patented technical solutions for processing woodchips from SRC willow and for generating clean energy and activated biochar from these woodchips . The novel , patented cutting technology of our willow processor provides an energy-efficient way to get consistent precision woodchips for combustion in small and medium-size, automatic pellet stoves , boilers and microCHP units Because in some regions of Europe ( e.g. Romania ) the price of wood pellets has steadily increased over the last decade and became higher than the price of natural gas, many wood pellet boiler owners are searching for cheaper options to replace wood pellets. Or, if natural gas is available, they simply abandon the wood pellet heating system and replace it with a natural gas-based heating system. But natural gas is a fossil fuel with a huge carbon footprint and especially today it is very important to reduce the use of natural gas and use biomass instead. Unfortunately, the opposite happens in many cases.
Advantages
There are some cheap alternative biomass solutions to wood pellets but all of those have major disadvantages. Corn kernels are cheaper than wood pellets and can be used to replace wood pellets but in most cases, the automatic heating equipment will misfire and get damaged by high heat, corrosion, soot, and ash fusion. Pellets made of straw are also cheaper than wood pellets but they cause malfunctions of stoves and boilers due to corrosive gases, high ash content, and formation of clinkers.
Efficiency
We know that the only viable way to replace wood pellets is to use some sort of fragmented woody material with a similar physical shape and size of fragments to pellets. We also know that fragmenting the wood in an energy-efficient way needs to be done with low-velocity knives cutting the material parallel with fibre orientation. So we designed an innovative fragmenting machine using SRC willow as feedstock to obtain a fragmented woody material. SRC willow has features that make it ideal to be fragmented with our equipment: thin, long, almost straight shoots, no or few ramifications, flexible wood. If we let the willow shoots dry before fragmentation, then the final product (precision willow woodchips) do not need additional drying before combustion. So the whole process is extremely low energy demand compared to wood pellet production. Our estimate shows that for 1 ton of precision willow woodchips we need 10-15 kWh of energy; as of 1 ton of wood pellets require 200-220 kWh of energy.
Going for biomass
Growing SRC willow for biomass is just emerging in Romania compared to Sweden, Poland, Germany or the UK. However, in the last decade, a few innovative companies in Romania started to establish Salix plantations for experimental, demonstrational or commercial purposes. The media is also looking with increased interest in success stories related to climate change mitigation with the use of renewable energies: solar, wind, and biomass. Therefore, slowly but surely private companies and local administrations take on the journey of renewables, especially biomass which is abundant, cheap, affordable, sustainable, and carbon neutral or in many cases even carbon negative. As a proud member of the European Biomass Industry Association we strongly support the Green Transition, especially with our innovative activity.
© 2021 Willomass all rights reserved. Project financed by Harghita County Council, in partnership with Harghita Business Center | WordPress Design and Development by WebGurus
