Szent Istvan University

Mechanical Engineering Institute

Laboratory report of visit to the NAIK

Biomass energy
Jacob Ruiz Collado
EG9ST2
Basics of energetics
PROFFESOR
Dr. Schrempf Norbert Attila
Godollo, Hungary
2020/02/24
Index
What is Biomass Energy? .......................................................................................................... 1
NAIK center biomass machinery .............................................................................................. 2
Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 5
References................................................................................................................................. 5

Figures
Figure 1 Types of Biomass ................................................................................................ 1
Figure 2 Biomass cycle...................................................................................................... 2
Figure 3 Erpek Machine .................................................................................................... 2
Figure 4 Wood ................................................................................................................. 3
Figure 5 Wood Chipper ..................................................................................................... 3
Figure 6 Wider view of the woodchipper .......................................................................... 4
Figure 7 Technical information about the machine ............................................................ 4
Figure 8 Controller of the machine.................................................................................... 5

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 Summary
Our first practical class of this subject, called Basics of Energetics consisted in
the visit to the NAIK, which in English stands for Institute of Agricultural
Mechanization. In this place, we got to see how a machine the uses the biomass
energy principles work, and its importance on regards of the topic of energy
production and it’s uses. In this report, we will see a basic overview to what
biomass energy stands for, explaining its usage in a general level and then will
include an explanation of the machinery we saw, how it works and some
important technical information of it.
Keywords
• Biomass
• Woodchips
• Woodchipper
• Photosynthesis
• Heat production

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1 What is Biomass Energy?
Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and it is a
renewable source of energy.

Biomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun's energy
in a process called photosynthesis. When biomass is burned, the chemical
energy in biomass is released as heat. Biomass can be burned directly or
converted to liquid biofuels or biogas that can be burned as fuels.

Examples of biomass and their uses for energy

• Wood and wood processing wastes—burned to heat buildings, to produce
process heat in industry, and to generate electricity
• Agricultural crops and waste materials—burned as a fuel or converted to
liquid biofuels
• Food, yard, and wood waste in garbage—burned to generate electricity in
power plants or converted to biogas in landfills
• Animal manure and human sewage—converted to biogas, which can be
burned as a fuel. (Eia.gov, 2020)

As we can see, biomass energy gathers a group of elements which can be used
to fulfill the process of energy conversion, getting others forms of energy that
can be useful and needed in today’s energy market.

Figure 1 Types of Biomass

Any of these types of materials can be used in the process of biomass energy.
We can recognize that all of them will make some sort of combustion once they
react when they get burned, releasing the energy they have.
The cycle of biomass energy production can be described easily and it’s
basically the same regardless which type of biomass energy is being used, let’s
take it a look.

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 Figure 2 Biomass cycle
Now that we know how what biomass energy and its cycle is, which can be
used, for example, to produce electricity and also heat production, we will
analyze the machine we saw at the NAIK center.
2 NAIK center biomass machinery
On our visit to the NAIK center, we saw a machine they have which uses de
the biomass principles to produce heating that can be applied to water and
also calefaction systems of offices and houses.

Figure 3 Erpek Machine

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This big machine, using the biomass energy principles, converts woodchips into
heat, which as mentioned before, can be used to provide heating to residential
places. It is important to mention, that even thought some biomass energy
systems can convert biomass into electrical energy, this system that we are
evaluating here can be only used to convert woodchips into heat.

Figure 4 Wood
In the same room, they had storaged some available wood that can be used
in the process of heating production.

Figure 5 Wood Chipper

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The machine itself, has this triturator on the side, which cuts the wood pieces
shown before so they can be cuted into wood chips, that after being converted
into woodchips, will get into the machine, which will burn the woodchips, fulfilling
then after that the production of heat. As it can be seen, the woodchips fall
through the whole, and then goes to the inside of the machine.

Figure 6 Wider view of the woodchipper

The machine itself has some technical information that should be known to
everybody that uses it and in our case that we went to know about how it
works and all its general information. The same information can be found in
near the controllers of the machine.

Figure 7 Technical information about the machine

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 Figure 8 Controller of the machine
3 Conclusions
In this first practical class of Basics of Energetics, we could acquire the
knowledge and observe a machine that uses the biomass energy principles to
produce heat with the use of wood chips. We learnt some needed information
on regards of how biomass sytems are generally used with different types of
biomass materials, which are used to produce energy. Also, we learnt how the
ErPek machine works using this principles. Throughout the course, we will
keep learning about other energy convertion systems and how they work so
the energy demand of our population can be satisfied.
4 References
Eia.gov. (2020). Biomass explained - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). [online]
Available at: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biomass/ [Accessed 23 Feb. 2020].