BrikStar converts wood waste into briquettes

Décor Moulding and Paneling, part of Décor Group, Mississauga, ON, says it has found a way to turn more profit on its sawdust and other wood waste, adding machinery for converting it to bri-quettes that can be sold at higher prices in consumer markets. Briquettes are used in commercial boilers and by homeowners in wood burning stoves.

While 15-employee Décor Moulding has always sold its wood waste in bulk to composite panel manufacturers or as animal bedding, its new briquetter — the Höcker Polytechnik BrikStar (sold in North America by O2 Filtration) — allows them to get more per pound for the wood waste. Décor added the BrikStar Magnum model, which also features auto bagging, and presses rectangular briquettes, the standard for resale in Europe.

The BrikStar Magnum is outstandingly suited for the professional production of briquettes. More-over, due to its special hydraulic system, it is extremely energy efficient and where other ma-chines require a hydraulic pump of 30 kW or more, this machine achieves outstanding throughput and briquette density with only 22 kW.

Giovanni Bruno, production manager at Décor, said during the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta in August that the BrikStar conversion of wood waste into briquettes will deliver payback in about six months. Décor Moulding produces about 40,000 pounds of sawdust and shavings per week in making its mouldings, yielding 18,000 pounds of briquettes.

“All of our wood shavings go into the silo,” says Bruno. While the waste was valuable as a com-modity to composite panel manufacturers for producing MDF and other products, it has even more value compressed into briquettes for consumers. Instead of selling wood waste for $3.50 cents per yard to board manufacturers, Décor Mouldings can sell the briquettes at retail prices to consumers.

Décor Moulding and Paneling is finalizing details on marketing strategies for the briquette output, which could include export to Europe. Bruno says Decor had considered acquiring a system that produced only pellets, but opted instead for producing the briquettes, which can be bagged by the dozen and shipped to retailers.

Family-owned and operated, Décor Mouldings supplies wood and fibreglass composite mouldings in Canada, the United States and to other export markets. Décor Mouldings says it takes great care in the production of products in an environmentally-friendly manner, deriving maximum use from raw lumber — hence the appeal of selling briquettes made from wood waste — while mini-mizing energy costs.

At IWF, O2 Filtration showed the Höcker MultiStar filtration system, BrikStar briquetter, and an Energy Management System for dust collection, which can be integrated to the briquetting equipment. In April, O2 Filtration staged a North American showing of the Höcker Polytechnik sawdust filtration/collector integrated to a briquetter at a Weinig open house, with an interior 5,000-CFM dust collector that meets the National Fire Prevention Assn. Standard 664: “Standard for the Prevention of Fires and Explosions.”