Durability

The forces acting on pellets during unloading process from the trucks on the ground or
during feeding from the chutes into bins at the pellets manufacturing plant can be simulated by
measuring the impact resistance or the drop resistance or the shattering resistance test. A drop
resistance method will be used in this study to determine the durability of the raw and hydrochar
pellets (Kaliyan & Vance Morey, 2009). Each pellet sample will be dropped from 1.85 m height
on a metal plate 4 times. The percentage weight retained after dropping will expressed as the pellet
durability.

(%) = 100

Hydrophobicity and Water Resistance

Hydrophobicity will be evaluated following the same procedure for the hydrochar
evaluation. For water resistance, both raw and hydrochar CPH pellets will be immersed in water
for 2 hours. Later the pellets will be removed and the excess water drained by placing the pellets
on an adsorbent paper. The pellets will then be placed on the aluminum sheet and will be exposed
to the controlled room environment for 4 hours. The final material will be re-weighed; the change
in weight of pellets will expressed as moisture absorbed.

Hydrophobicity

Equilibrium moisture content (EMC) is defined as the moisture content of the

sample that is in thermodynamic equilibrium with the moisture of the surrounding
atmosphere at a given relative humidity, temperature, and pressure. To determine EMC of
the solid samples in this study, both raw and hydrochar samples will be exposed to
environment of two different humidity levels using a combination of salt and desiccator at
constant room temperature. After exposure of 24 hours to the controlled environment, the
samples will be weighed and dried in an oven at 105C for 16 hours. The final weight will
be taken and the change in weight will be expressed as the percentage moisture adsorbed.

where:
MC= Moisture content of the sample
Mf = Final mass of the sample
Mdry = Mass of the oven dried sample