back

Increasing energy costs – the catchword nowadays. They mean a high increase in costs for the individual house owner every year and hit the operators of maize and grain driers especially hard.
So it is obvious that alternative possibilities for air heating are considered.
The usual heating source for the drying of maize is an oil or gas fired air heater. In it, the air is heated and then dries the maize in the real drier. For years, there have been suitable designs for these heating media – as directly fired air heater or as indirect air heater according to the heat exchanger principle.
 

Since 2004, STELA Laxhuber GmbH has the official approval of the indirect air heaters with an efficiency of more than 90 % with oil firing. On the basis of the low oil consumption, an air heater for wood chips firing was developed.
Instead of usually used oil or gas fan burners, STELA Laxhuber now constructed an air heater equipped with a suitable wood chips burner. The first Bioflamm pushgrate firing in combination with a safety-tested indirect STELA air heater for maize drying has been in operation since 2004. It was designed for the thermal utilization of natural fuels. Also wood chips of lower quality are used.
The fuels with a max. water content of 50 % (W 50) and a max. size of approx. 30 x 15 mm (G 50) are fed into the Bioflamm push grate burner by an automatically controlled conveyor system.
In 2004, the biomass firing was used on approx. 30 days for maize drying and for a short time for grain drying. Every day, up to 35 m³ wood chips were burnt.