You must have heard of boilers that have been in use since ancient times. Those boilers supplied hot water to your homes. But today you may have heard of a newer term “biofuel boiler”. It is actually the same as the traditional boilers that you have seen or heard of all these days. The only difference that these boilers have is their fuel. One burns on fossil fuels while the other on biofuels.
The Many Reasons To Use Biofuels Instead Of Fossil Fuels
The first reason why biofuel boilers have become a popular item today is their fuel material. As has already been mentioned, one uses fossil fuels while the other uses biofuels. So it can easily be understood their impact on the environment is totally different.
There are many other reasons why biofuel boilers are becoming common. The carbon that is released from burning wood in these boilers is absorbed by the trees which means they are beneficial for plants. So it is a carbon-neutral fuel that actually has no or negligible impact on nature.
A lot of wood is wasted and that wood goes to landfills. Instead of dumping them there, they can be used as fuel in a biofuel boiler. In this way, you get hot water and heat as well as reduce the pressure on the poor landfills. Thus the importance of these boilers can be very easily felt and their impact is visible too.
The Working Of Biofuel Boilers
A biofuel boiler works in the same way as a traditional boiler. They burn the fuel that is supplied to them to produce heat and hot water as is the application. But this boiler type is much larger in structure as compared to the conventional boiler. One very obvious reason is their fuel. This boiler makes use of wood pellets to burn and so naturally they must be bigger.
The traditional boiler is of course smaller because they use gas or diesel.
In a biofuel boiler, there arises the need for an automatic hopper that will feed the boiler with the wood pellets automatically. So there is another additional part that translates to a bigger boiler body. The bigger their storage system the less there is the need for refueling which is easier on the operator.
But a biofuel boiler needs a little maintenance. To be specific, the ash needs to be emptied every four weeks. Even the boiler has to be serviced and maintained properly for it to function hassle-free way.
The Materials On Which Biofuel Boilers Run
A biofuel boiler runs on biomass fuels as you already know. But there are many types of such fuels available and to allow your boiler to run smoothly without any interruption you need to have a ready source of the fuel. So you will have to decide which is available from the list below:
- Wood chips – Wood chips are small pieces of wood that are deemed to be the waste of big logs and other sources. This instead of filling the landfills is used by biofuel boilers. And the best part of the whole deal is that they are a cheap source of fuel. And it is easily available almost everywhere in the market.
- Wood pellets – They are made from sawdust, forest waste, wood shavings, etc. compacted into pellet forms. They are mostly used for domestic purposes. They are fed into the hoppers in large quantities and so naturally are also stocked in huge amounts.
- Wood logs – Wood logs have now become obsolete because they have to be fed into the hoppers manually which is not at all possible these days. So naturally, they are phasing out though they are easily available and cheap to source. And so if the owner has a lot of storage space and labour resources he can jolly well opt for this form of fuel.
Conclusion
Finally, a biofuel boiler has only positive aspects to show which means they are one of the most suitable forms of heat and hot water sources these days. So if you have any impending plans of installing one here are all the reasons why you should do so.
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