Vega Biofuels expands torrefaction machine capabilities

Vega Biofuels Inc., Norcross, Georgia, announced that it has expanded its manufacturing capabilities to include multiple sizes of its bio-coal product to meet recent demand. Bio-coal is a renewable, green energy product made from timber waste using technology called torrefaction. Torrefaction is the treatment of biomass at high temperatures under low oxygen conditions. Vega Biofuels recently announced that the company filed a Provisional Patent Application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under the title "Method and Apparatus for Torrefying Biomass." The application disclosure relates generally to wood used as a fuel source, and more particularly to systems, methods, and devices for torrefying biomass, such as wood or other agricultural biomass.

The generation 4 machine has been used to produce a bio-coal product that looks very similar to a piece of traditional Powder River Basin Coal and is approximately the size of a golf ball. As a result of the demand for other applications, Vega Biofuels has developed both a powder version and a pellet version of its bio-coal product.

"We have had customers ask specifically for pellets and a powder version of our bio-coal and we felt that it was important to make some changes to our process to meet the demand," says Michael K. Molen, chairman/CEO of Vega Biofuels Inc. "Coal-fired power plants still want the bio-coal in chunk form, but there are some other applications that require a little different product.  The energy created from the torrefaction process is similar in all of our products.  This opens up a new market for our Company and we look forward to marketing these products along with our "chunk" bio-coal that has received tremendous interest from all over the world."