Development of Wood Briquette Production Technology with Controlled Thermowood Dosing, Multi-Component Flow Management and Integrated Safety Architecture

This study presents an industrial technology for producing multi-component wood briquettes with controlled raw material dosing, homogenization, and an integrated ATEX-oriented safety architecture. The process enables independent control of three raw material streams—thermally modified wood shavings, untreated dry wood residues, and externally sourced sawdust dried to the required process moisture—allowing controlled formulation of briquette compositions according to raw-material availability. The technology was validated through an industrial-scale trial in a furniture manufacturing plant producing softwood briquettes containing 25–75 wt.% TM pine sawdust. Compared with conventional briquettes, the products exhibited a slightly higher calorific value while maintaining stable mechanical strength. To mitigate the increased ignition and explosion hazards associated with dry, fine TM wood dust, the production system incorporates aspiration and filtration units, explosion vent panels, spark detection and automatic extinguishing systems in pneumatic conveying lines, and spatial separation of drying and briquetting units. Industrial-scale trials confirmed the feasibility of controlled recipe production and product quality. The briquettes achieved a density above 900 kg m−3, ash content below 0.3 wt.%, and ash melting temperature above 1100 °C, meeting ISO 17225-3 requirements. The developed technology enables safe, reliable, and flexible briquette production using variable raw material streams.