Production, Cost and Chip Characteristics of In-Woods Microchipping

Emerging markets for biomass have increased the interest in producing microchips in the field. As a component of a large United States Department of Energy (DOE) funded project, microchipping has been trialed on a limited scale. The goal of the research was to evaluate the production, cost and chip characteristics of a mobile disc chipper configured to produce microchips. Multiple test loads of Southern Pine were chipped and analyzed during the study. The chipper was modified after each test in an effort to obtain an “ideal ” microchip that met a narrowly-defined specification. This paper reports the resulting production rate, cost and chip characteristics