All about binders ' make briquette with proper binder

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Binder, the secret of briquette making. For most of the briquette plant, add binder is the commonest way for the process. So, what kind of binder can be used for the briquette process? What are their advantages and disadvantages? What are the important factors we need to consider for choosing binder? Is it possible to make briquette without binder? Let follow the article and solve these problems.

The function of binder in briquette making process

We can find briquette machine with varies types, screw type (extrude type), hydraulic type, roller type, punching type, etc. These different type briquetters works under different pressures. As a matter of reducing the pressure for briquette making, binder thus plays an important role. Using binder will make some kinds of materials work with different types of briquetter due to the lower pressure requirement. Binder also gives a high strength to the briquette.

With different usage, we may choose different binders for our briquette. For example, starch, which is a very common binder and easy to get, also make a good performance on briquette making, it is widely used to make BBQ charcoal as it's natural and smokeless way. But in industrial usage like make briquette for furnace, as the high temperature strength of starch is that bad, silicon-containing binders widely used this time. Those liquid binders also improve the briquette making the performance by the function of lubricating to increase the service life of the briquette moulds.

Type of binders

With the action principle of briquette making for the raw material, binders can be divided into three types. matrix type, film type, chemical type.

examples of binders

matrix type film type chemical type asphalt

cement

palm wax

paraffin

clay

kaolin

dry starch

polyvinyl alcohol

methyl cellulose

water

sodium silicate (water glass )

animal glue

starch paste

gum

bentonite

dextrin

molasses

wet starch

sucrose

lignosulfonates

ethanol and other organic solvents

Ca(OH)2+CO2

Ca(OH)2+molasse

MgO+MgCl2

sodium silicate+CaCl3

sodium silicate+CO2

HNO3

aluminum sol

silica sol

silica gel

resin

• matrix type

These binders normally used for extrusion and compression briquetting. Normally the void volume between the raw material will be around 2-10%, this type of binder will full fill the gap between the raw material, increase its plasticity and the particle bonding strength. It also has other functions as dilution and lubrication, and reduce the internal friction of the raw material.

• film type

Most of this type are liquid binder. The binder coats the particle of the raw material like a film. After briquette and dried, it will increase the strength of the briquette. It uses the surface tension to pull the material together. The most important factor is the specific surface area. Material with tiny particles will cost more binder of this type. For those materials with small bulk density and high specific surface area like charcoal, the binder cost will be much more even than 30% ( most of which is water ).

• chemical type

The chemical type is a kind of binder with the chemical reaction between the multiple mix binder or binder to the material, thereby increasing the bond strength between the material particles. For example, quicklime and water.

add binder can increase the strength of briquette

add binder can increase the strength of briquette

testing briquette strength

testing briquette strength

Are you interested in learning more about Sawdust Briquetting Machine? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!

Some common binders

Starch

The Common starches we usually use as binders are from maize (corn starch), potato, and wheat, and less-common starches from rice and tapioca. Normally, a starch needs to be gelatinized by thorough cooking in water at a temperature between 60°C to 80°C. This temperature disrupts the intermolecular bonds, creating hydrogen-bonding sites for attaching additional water molecules and makes the starch soluble in cold water. After cooking, the starch is dried in a spray dryer, drum dryer, or extruder. You can buy pregelatinized starch, but it's substantially more expensive than raw starch.

Cement

Cement is used as a binder for briquetting coal, char, and charcoal and then for briquetting iron and steel wastes. Now cement is widely used in the steel plant as one of the main binders. But use cement will bring gangue and crystal water, so to reduce the cement cost can help to increase the purity of briquette, as cement need a long time to get an ideal strength, add other binders with small dose will improve this work, like sodium silicate, etc.

Molasses

Molasses has been utilized individually as the binder or with lime for a long time ' especially slaked lime (calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)2]) ' to briquette coal and other materials like the waste in the steel plant. Gotten from sugarcane or beets, molasses' ingredients can be much different upon where the plant grows, how it was made, and also has things to do with the season. Molasses is very thick, however it turns to be more liquid when it was heated, enabling it to be easily mixed with slaked lime. Commonly, the ratio of molasses to lime is between 2 to 1 and 4 to 1.

Bentonite

Most bentonite binder is used as the binder for iron ore briquette making, especially the sodium bentonite. The main ingredients of bentonite are SiO2, Al2O3'Fe2O3'CaO, add few bentonites will significantly increase the burst temperature of the briquette. Bentonite has a super high moisture control ability compare to other Inorganic binders, thus makes it irreplaceable.

Sodium silicate ( water glass )

Sodium silicate is used in liquid form as a binder in briquette making. It is low cost, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. But making briquette with sodium silicate need the material with low moisture which causes more dust pollution. The sodium silicate with high quality are with light yellow color and almost totally transparent. Sodium silicate is high in alkali metal content which should be avoided by adding too much to cause damage to the blast furnace.

Find the suitable binder for your briquette machine

In order to find the best binder for your briquette plant, you need to find specific answers to these questions.

1. Is the briquette strong, durable, and weather resistant;
2. Is the binder environment friendly;
3. Is the binder easy to get and has a big amount;
4. Is the binder cost effectiveness according to the briquette selling price;

The key to your suitable binder is its cost effectiveness. And check over these questions then it helps you find the very binder you can use.

Coal is a material which is widely used in domestic and industry for different usages. Coal briquetting process normally follow a binder briquetting way. Here we list the coal briquette binders

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When you are a life long carpenter with an amazing workshop, you're going to make a lot of saw dust, and managing its collection and storage poses quite a challenge. [Russ] from [New Yorkshire Workshop] built an impressive Briquette press to handle the problem.

It's a hydraulic press that ingests  saw dust and spits out compressed briquettes ready for fueling his rocket mass heater. The build starts with a batch of custom, laser cut steel parts received from Fractory. The heart of the machine is a 300 mm stroke hydraulic cylinder with a beefy 40 mm rod. The cylinder had to be taken apart so that the laser cut mounting flanges could be welded, slowly so as not to deform the cylinder. The intake feed tube was cut from a piece of 40 mm bore seamless tube. A window was cut in the feed tube and funnel parts were welded to this cutout. The feed tube assembly is then finished off with a pair of mounting flanges. The feed tube assembly is in turn welded to the main feed plate which will form the base of the saw dust container. The hydraulic cylinder assembly is mated to the feed tube assembly using a set of massive M10 high tensile class 10.9 threaded rods. The push rod is a length of 40 mm diameter mild steel bar stock, coupled to the hydraulic cylinder using a fabricated coupling clamp. On the coupling clamp, he welded another bracket on which a bolt can be screwed on. This bolt helps activate the limit switches that control the movement of the hydraulic cylinder and the feed motor.

Next, he starts work on the hydraulic power pack, powered by a used Chinese piston pump coupled to a 7.5 kW motor, capable of delivering about 30 litres / minute. After a flurry of drilling, tapping, cutting, grinding and welding, he has the tank assembled with ports for the various connections, a motor-pump mount, an inlet lid and filter openings, a set of caster wheels and eye bolts and some angles to mount the  electrical panel. To check for leaks in the tank, he seals off all the openings, and pressurises the chamber with compressed air. Then, using soap solution, he identifies and fixes the various leaks. A heat exchanger to help cool the oil is attached to the power pack, with some of the rigid piping converted to flexible hoses.

He then proceeds to build up the electrical control panel, wiring up a custom relay PCB assembled on perf board, and a bunch of contactors, relays, MCB's switches and the most important Emergency push button, doubled up with a remote E-stop pendant.

To stir up the saw dust, and push a handful down the funnel of the feed tube during each cylinder stroke, he used a set of rotating blades mounted to a hydraulic motor at the centre of the main feed plate. The rotating blades are 20 mm square section steel pipes welded to a central hub. To fabricate this, he first machined the central hub and a corresponding broaching sleeve, and then used a broaching tool to cut a key-way slot in the machined hub. With some effort, the broaching could be done manually, but why do that when he could use his powerful hydraulic cylinder to do it. The limit switches for controlling the motion of the cylinder and the motor were fixed on an aluminum extrusion and then [Russ] did a dry run to make sure everything worked as expected.

For compressing the saw dust in to solid briquettes, he used a 40 mm bore seamless pipe with two slits running along its length. By using a clamp to taper the open end of the tube, he could adjust the consistency of the briquettes ' from soft and powdery to hard as wood.

Finally, he built the saw dust collector box using plywood and polycarbonate and assembled it on the main feed plate. Removing the old dust collection bags and fitting his new machine in place was quite straight forward, but there were several teething problems to be debugged before he could get briquettes of the desired consistency. Once everything was sorted, his machine was producing about 24 kg of briquettes per hour.

[Russ] might call himself a carpenter, but he sure has all the other skills needed to pull off this complex project. Check out [Russ]'s companion project where he rebuilds a shredder to help chop up card board boxes in to small strips, which can further be compressed using this machine in to briquettes.

Thanks to [Keith Fulkerson] and [Keith Olson] for tipping us off on this impressive build.

 

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Automotive Parts Shredders.