Pelletizing Performance of Food Waste Compost by An Extrusion Process

Abstract

This study was performed to develop extrusion pelletizer for pelletizing the compost waste food. The effect of water content on the shape of pellet, the relationship between diameter of pellet and of extrusion hole and the relationship between extrusion force and die angle were investigated. Considering the stable shape of compost pellet and the operation efficiency of pelletizer, the water content of 2~4% was considered as the best condition. And the compost pellet could not maintain it's shape at the water content of 10% or over. The strongest extrusion force was needs when the die angle had 90° in 6 mm extrusion hole diameter, on the other hand, the weakest extrusion force was need at the die angle of 45°~65°. The compression strength of pellet shows the highest strength of 9.2Mpa when we make the compost pellet after screening the compost and make it with a size of 1.18 mm(No.16) or less.