KR20050015627A - A method and a system for producing herbaceous chips - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method and a system for producing herbaceous chips are provided to produce the herbaceous chips in large quantities by processing the trunks of herbaceous plants to recycle them as a substitution material of wood chips. CONSTITUTION: The method for producing herbaceous chips includes steps of: harvesting the trunks of herbaceous plants on the field; drying the trunks; removing the leaves from the trunk; removing the trunk inner from the trunk; and chopping the trunk outer, which remains after the trunk inner is removed from the trunk, to a determined size.

Description

A method and a system for producing herbaceous chips

The present invention relates to methods and systems for mass production of herbal plant chips that can be used as a substitute for wood chips.

Currently, wood chips are widely used throughout the industry, such as pulp making, sound insulation, insulation, wall finish fillers, plastic molded fillers, building exteriors and furniture materials. Such wood chips have remarkable advantages in terms of utilization of waste wood and low cost, but they are also becoming expensive due to limited wood resources compared to the vast use.

Therefore, developing a material that can be used as a substitute for such wood chips at a lower cost is very industrially beneficial.

In this regard, the inventors have found that herbal plant stems can be used as a substitute for such wood chips via a suitable series of processing processes.

Herbaceous plants that can be used as a substitute for wood chips include corn, sorghum, sugar cane, hemp, flax, reeds, and king-stalks.

In particular, corn, sorghum, etc. are widely grown all over the world, but only the fruit is used for food, except that it is used for some feed. The stems are left to be disposed of on farmland or discarded as agricultural residue. Considering the global production of corn, sorghum, etc., if the mass production of herbaceous plant chips is made using the plant stems to be discarded and used as a substitute for wood chips, the supply of cheap substitute materials, reduction of agricultural waste, It can have significant effects in various aspects, such as increasing farm income and conserving limited forest resources.

Since the 1930s, attempts have been made to utilize herbaceous plant stems such as corn stalks, which are agricultural waste resources, for various purposes. As an example, Korea also discloses a method of using corn stalk as a pulp raw material through a series of processing steps in a patent No. 10-0324487 issued February 27, 2001. However, the document merely deals with a series of processes for producing pulp using corn stalks after being processed in a similar fashion to wood pulp stock, and does not mention the actual processing method from corn stalks to pulp material. Moreover, it will be said that it is fundamentally different from the summary of this invention used as a fundamental substitute material of a wood chip through the mass processing production of herbal plant chips.

At the very least, within the scope of the present inventors, there are no patents or literature regarding the technology and system for processing and producing a large amount of chips that can be used for various purposes after harvesting corn stalk or sorghum. Neither is it currently commercialized.

Therefore, the present invention processes herbaceous plant stems to mass produce herbaceous plant chips, and utilize them as substitutes for wood chips, thereby providing inexpensive substitute materials, reducing agricultural waste, increasing farm income, and limited forest resources. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the production of herbal plant chips that can meet various aspects of preservation.

The present invention provides a new system by a series of continuous processes that enable large-scale mass processing for the industrial resources of the raw material of the agricultural residue waste, which is not possible with the small scale processing method, which is corn stalk. Alternatively, the sorghum stems are harvested from the farmland to the harvester, and then transported by a conveyor, through a series of automated processes such as sorting, defoliation, fragmentation, removal of the core, fragmentation, packaging, and various construction interior materials, soundproofing materials, thermal insulation materials, Provided are methods and systems for continuous processing of wall finishing fillers, plastic molding fillers, and non-wood paper pulp manufacturing raw material chips.

Such a system may be constructed in such a way that a treatment plant is established in a separate location and the stems harvested from the farmland are transported to the plant and processed by separate means of transport. Multiple such treatment plants may be installed on some of the vast farmland to reduce transportation costs and improve processing efficiency.

In addition, such a system may be configured to be a mobile unit to produce herbaceous plant chips by directly processing on-site stems harvested from harvesters such as combines, for example. In this case, transportation costs can be reduced, and wastes such as leaves can be disposed of on farmland, which can be treated in an environmentally friendly manner without incurring a separate disposal cost. Disposal based on agricultural methods to maintain the soil by reducing to nature can be made.

In addition, such a system is formed as a modular unit that can be assembled and separated from the harvester, and harvested with a harvester only in a narrow area that is difficult to work, and then transported to a processing plant separately disposed in a nearby area for processing. It may be.

Advantages obtained through the system of the present invention are as follows.

1. Recycling of waste resources: For example, considering only the amount grown in some countries, such as the United States and China, hundreds of billions of tons of corn stalks are produced annually, most of which are disposed of on farmland. Therefore, the present invention recycles agricultural residues thus simply discarded as useful resources.

2. Enhancement of Farm Income: According to the present invention, the herbaceous plant stem, which was conventionally merely a waste material, can be recycled, thereby achieving a drastic increase in farm income.

3. Protection of limited forest resources and the natural environment: Due to the limited forest area compared to the huge demand, forest resources are depleted all over the world, which not only raises the price of resources but also causes many problems in terms of environmental conservation. have. The present invention contributes to the preservation of forest resources and the natural environment by making it possible to utilize herbaceous plants discarded as waste resources as a substitute for wood chips.

4. Ease of supply and demand: Since timber requires decades of growth from planting to resourceization, inherently limited supply and demand, herbaceous plants can be volunteered for only half a year. Recycling cycle is extremely short. Thus, unlike wood chips, herbaceous plant chips have a substantially infinite supply and demand structure.

5. Ease of implementation of the system: The system of the present invention utilizes a conventional harvester, which has already been widely used in the harvesting stage, which requires a significant implementation cost, and does not require any modification for the system. to be. That is, only the cost of implementing the post-harvest stage as a mobile unit type or as a separate processing plant can be connected and disconnected to a conventional harvester.

6. Environmental friendliness: The system of the present invention is implemented as a mobile unit linked to a conventional harvester, and can substantially complete all processing at the same time as harvesting, reducing all by-products such as unnecessary leaves and soil to farmland directly on site. Therefore, it has an environmentally friendly characteristic with substantially no waste generation. In addition, even when the processing is completed in a separate processing plant, since substantially no additional contaminants are added in the processing process, the entire by-product can be reduced back to farmland and used for maintaining intellect as compost.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[System Overview]

Herbaceous plant chip manufacturing process and system of the present invention shown in Figure 1 consists of nine processes as follows.

1. Harvest

As described above, conventional harvesting methods of edible cultivated herbaceous plants, such as corn and sorghum, have a method of harvesting fruit, leaving the stem, and harvesting the fruit and stem at the same time to grind the whole to use for feed.

Therefore, the harvesting method of the present invention is 1) harvesting the neglected stem, and 2) separating the simultaneous harvested fruit and the stem, the fruit is processed according to the conventional method, only the stem is processed separately into herbal plant chips You can do it.

These harvesting stages are each harvested by a conventional harvester configured to cut and harvest the bottom of the stem, leaving only the roots, or 2) harvesting the stems with fruit and separating the harvested fruit and stems. Can be performed by

2. cutting

The harvested stalks are cut to a size suitable for subsequent processing (eg, removal of the stomach), for example 15 cm to 20 cm, and hot air dried.

Although the cut size of the cutting step is illustrated and described herein in a range of 15 cm to 20 cm, it can be cut into various sizes depending on the device and plant structure and the convenience of processing.

3. Removal of defoliation and foreign substances

In the manufacture of herbaceous plant chips, the remainder of the leaf and foreign matter, except for the stem shell, must be removed. Therefore, for example, defoliation and foreign material removal are achieved by passing the stem cut pieces through a cleaning machine equipped with a roller brush or the like. Although defoliation and debris removal steps using a brush are described herein by way of example, any suitable defoliation and debris removal structure that is already known, or may be developed later, may be used, and the stiffness and Detailed parameters such as elasticity can also be appropriately applied depending on the application and harvest time.

4. Removing the stomach

The genus of herbaceous plants with relatively weak materials significantly degrades the strength and homogeneity of the finished herbaceous chip. Thus, to produce a more homogeneous, better herbaceous plant chip, the genus must be removed.

Such genera removal may be implemented in such a way that by bisecting the stem piece longitudinally with a cutting blade and passing the bisected stem piece over the chisel, the genus is removed by the chisel.

5. Fragmentation

The stem, which is left only in the shell by prior processing, is fragmented in a fragmentation step, for example, a herbaceous plant fragment of 30 mm size.

Such shoes can be made by a fragmentation machine, cutter, or the like having a suitable conventional structure.

In addition, although the size of the herbaceous plant chip is exemplified and described herein as 30 mm, the fragment size of the herbaceous plant chip should be appropriately applied depending on the intended use and the industrial environment, and the size of the various plant within the scope of the present invention. Herbal plant chips can be made.

6. Sterilization and preservative treatment

Herbal plant chips contain a certain level of moisture and contain microorganisms in their natural state. Therefore, sterilization and preservative treatment should be performed to maintain the value as raw materials for a long time.

This sterilization and preservative treatment is accomplished by passing the fragmented herbal plant chips through a sterilization and preservative spraying chamber. Such sterilization and preservative treatments may be used with appropriate sterilization and preservative treatment techniques well known in the art.

7. Segmentation

As an example in the fragmentation process, herbaceous plant fragments cut to a size of 30 mm are segmented into sizes suitable for the end use. The size of such final herbaceous plant chips may vary as appropriate for the end use.

8. Compression and Packing

The fragmented final herbaceous plant chips may be shipped as bulk raw materials to their use, but may be compressed and packaged into appropriate units for convenience of delivery, storage and trade.

Such compression packaging may also be done in any known manner.

9. Drying

Typically, freshly harvested herbaceous plant stems contain an unsuitable amount of moisture to produce the desired herbaceous plant chips in the present invention, which significantly degrades the quality of the final herbaceous plant chip.

Therefore, drying is carried out by hot air drying or the like during the process up to the packaging after harvesting described above.

The detailed parameters of hot air drying should be applied according to the moisture content according to the harvesting time of the herbaceous plant itself. Typically, the harvested corn has a moisture content of about 60-70%, and after a few days of harvesting the fruit, it drops to 20% to 30%. The target moisture content may vary depending on the application of the final herbal plant chips, but typically about 12% or less is suitable. Detailed parameters such as drying time, temperature, air volume, etc. according to a specific drying method, initial moisture content, and target moisture content can be obtained by those skilled in the art without any difficulty according to the environment in which the system of the present invention is implemented. It can be derived.

As mentioned above, although the main structure of the system of this invention was outlined and demonstrated, not all the above-mentioned steps are necessary for the herbal plant chip of virtually all uses.

For example, in fields and applications that do not require high strength, a small amount of solid and foreign matter may be included. In this case, the method is forcibly blown through a roller and a brush immediately after cutting and harvesting herbaceous plant stems. , Cleavage, defoliation and genus removal may be configured in one single step.

In addition, the fragmentation step may be fragmented to a size corresponding to the final herbaceous plant chip, or the fragmentation step may be omitted.

Hereinafter, with reference to the drawings will be described in detail the detailed configuration according to each of the above-described process steps applied to the stem of the corn of the herbaceous plants.

[harvesting]

2 is a photograph of a conventional corn picker.

Conventional harvesters harvest the fruit, typically 1) harvesting only fruit, 2) cutting about one third of the top of the corn stalk, 3) cutting the bottom of the stem to separate the fruit in the harvester and There may be a method of discarding the stems and 4) cutting the lower end of the corn stalks exposed to the ground, crushing all the harvested fruit and stems and use for feed. Since the gist of the present invention relates to a method of utilizing the corn stalks remaining after the fruit is harvested, the harvesting method of 4) will not be considered.

1) picking only fruit and 2) cutting a portion of the top of the corn stalk (eg, about one third; typically corn fruit concentrates about one third of the top of the corn's height). In the corn harvesting method, the stems of the herbaceous plants, which have been previously harvested in the conventional manner and then left on the farmland, are harvested by re-harvesting only the stems using the existing harvester as illustrated in FIG. 2.

The harvesting head of the harvester is provided with a cutting blade, and the cutting blade is used to cut and harvest the rest of the stem except for the root. The harvesting head of such a harvester is equipped with a pick-up reel, and is configured to harvest upright herbaceous plant stems that are cluttered when harvesting the fruit.

The herbaceous plant stem cut at the bottom is sucked through the inlet located at the center inside the harvest section. The corn stalks sucked out of alignment are discharged out of the harvester by a flat conveyor moving in a plane mounted in the harvester while passing through a stalk roll. The corn stalks discharged to the outside pass through a comb-shaped roller 4, as shown in FIG. 3, whereby they are aligned neatly.

The aligned corn stalks can be introduced into a device that implements the system of the invention mounted in a harvester in the form of a mobile unit for subsequent processing. In addition, the mobile unit carrying out the subsequent processing is separated from the harvester and located in a separate location (for reasons of shape of the harvesting area, narrowness, etc.) or when the processing plant is remote, it is accumulated while maintaining alignment. It may be implemented to be transferred to a subsequent processing position through a binding process of a furnace or an appropriate unit.

In the method of cutting the bottom of the corn stalk of 3) to separate only the corn fruit and discarding the remaining stems, the stems that are left untreated after the corn fruit are separated are transferred through a separate transfer path, and aligned by passing through a comb-shaped roller. The stems can be harvested in such a way that they are transferred to subsequent processing steps. To this end, it is possible to modify the existing harvester to implement a separate transfer path for the conventionally discarded corn stalks, or to modularize and connect the discarded corn stalks to the outlet where the discarded corn stalks are discharged to the sorting and subsequent steps. Various methods, such as implementing a device and mounting it to an existing harvester, may be used. Such a modification of the transport path or the implementation of a modular device may be easily implemented in a conventional manner by those skilled in the art. Therefore, it is not described in detail herein.

[cut]

Harvested corn stalks are passed through a cutter (not shown) and cut into sizes suitable for subsequent processing (eg, about 15 cm to 20 cm). This cutting step is not essential to the system of the present invention, but improves the efficiency of subsequent processing steps (eg, removal of solids, drying, etc.). In the cutting step, the corn stalks continuously moving through the conveyor may be cut at an appropriate time interval with intermittently operated blades, or the corn stalks continuously supplied from the cutting portions may be collected to a certain level to perform cutting at once. It is also possible, by way of example, to cut the corn stalks bound in units suitable for post-harvest transport, when the processing plant carrying out the series of subsequent treatments of the invention is in a separate location.

As explained in more detail below, it is essential to lower the moisture content of the harvested corn stalks to an appropriate level in the system of the present invention. Therefore, it is suitable to dry corn stalks using a hot air drying method or the like continuously after the cutting step except for the harvesting step which can be performed by a conventional harvester until the final packing. In addition, by using a forced blowing hot air drying method, impurities such as debris and soil left after cutting can be naturally separated from the corn stalks to be processed. This drying method is described in more detail below.

[Defoliation]

The corn stalks cut to a size suitable for processing are transferred to a subsequent defoliation step via a transfer conveyor 2 or the like.

Corn leaves on harvested corn stalks are generally impurities that degrade the purity and strength of the final herbaceous plant chips. Therefore, the defoliation step should remove corn leaves and other impurities except pure corn stalks. This defoliation step can be performed in a variety of ways, but can be carried out, for example, by passing the cut corn stalk through a rotating brush roller 8. The brush roller 8 is a roller in which, for example, hairs such as bristles are attached or formed around the outer circumference. The bristles of the brush rollers are installed alone or in pairs on the conveyor 2 for continuously transporting corn stalks, or are implemented with a pair of rotating rollers formed at the ends of the conveying conveyor, for subsequent processing steps (e.g. Leaves can be separated from the corn stalks. Such an embodiment is shown in FIG. 4. As shown in FIG. 4, the corn stalks introduced between the pair of rotary brush rollers 8 mounted at the ends of the conveyor 2 are in contact with the bristles of the brush rollers, while the corn stalks pass through the brush rollers 8. Leaves and other residual impurities will be cleaned. The brush rollers 8 are suitably rotated in opposite directions (directions indicated by arrows in FIG. 4) in the direction of promoting the conveyance of the workpiece, ie, corn stalks. In addition, for effective separation of leaves and foreign matter separated by the brush roller 8, it is suitable to be accompanied by forced air blowing by the blower 10 and the like.

As described above, it is suitable that continuous drying is performed in a manner such as hot air drying throughout the process of performing the defoliation step, and such drying may be performed by, for example, hot air blowing during defoliation and removal of foreign matter by the blower 10. Effectively implemented by blowing.

[Removal removal]

Corn stalks, which have been cut to the appropriate size and subjected to defoliation, are transferred to the cob removal step.

Herbaceous plants, such as corn, generally have a genus, which typically degrades the strength and uniformity of the final herbaceous plant chip and the purity of other mechanical and chemical properties. Therefore, it is suitable to remove such a genera in order to provide better quality herbal plant chips. However, depending on the various applications of herbal plant chips, the above-mentioned defoliation and genus removal may be unnecessary. The need for such defoliation and genus removal processes can be appropriately added or subtracted based on the properties and economics of the field of use of the final herbal plant chips. In other words, defoliation and genus removal make the properties of the final herbaceous plant chips more uniform, but with additional processing costs, and thus can be added and removed depending on the economics of use and necessity.

The removal of the core may be performed in various ways, but in the present specification, a hopper 12 in which the cut corn stalks are accommodated, a cutting blade 14 for dividing the corn stalks discharged at an appropriate amount and speed from the lower end of the hopper, and An example embodied with a chisel 14 scraping a bundle from nutrient corn stalks is illustrated in FIG. 4.

As shown in FIG. 4, the corn stalks passing through the defoliation brush roller 8 attached to the end of the transfer conveyor 2 fall freely into the hopper 12 disposed below. A discharge port is provided at the bottom of the hopper, and the diameter (D) of the discharge port is preferably d <D <2d when the diameter of the corn stalk to be treated is d. This is to avoid two or more corn stalks being introduced into the outlet at the same time and stagnating the hopper. Although the hopper illustrates one outlet, this hopper may have more than one outlet depending on the throughput of the corn stalks. In addition, a plurality of hoppers may be mounted around a single axis of rotation and configured to feed and discharge corn stalks while the hopper is rotated around the axis of rotation to improve throughput.

In addition, when a large amount of corn stalk is supplied to one hopper, the hopper may be configured to rotate around its own central axis or to oscillate at an appropriate amplitude such that the corn stalks are sequentially discharged in an appropriate amount.

The corn stalks discharged through the outlet are nutrients while passing through the cutting blade 14. This cutting blade 14 is preferably configured to be aligned with the central axis of the outlet of the hopper 12 so as to nourish the corn stalks as uniformly as possible. The bisected corn stalks pass over the chisels along different paths, and the husks are scratched by the chisels, leaving only the hull. The outer shell can be post-processed through each separate route or collected and subsequently processed through the same route.

As described above, it is preferable that the drying is continuously performed in such a manner as hot air drying even during the removal of the core, and such drying improves the separation efficiency of the core and the shell. That is, the corn stalks dried to a certain level are formed by the difference between the moisture content of the solid and the outer shell and the dry shrinkage rate to form a gap between the solid and the outer shell, which ensures more efficient separation of the solid and the outer shell.

[Fragmentation]

The corn stalks, which have been subjected to defoliation and cob removal, leaving only the pure skin, are fed to the shredder. The input corn hull is, for example, fragmented into pieces of about 30 mm in size. The cut pieces are discharged through an outlet and transferred to a subsequent sterilization and preservative treatment step via a conveying means such as a conveyor.

The fragmentation step is a step of forming a material fragment that becomes the basic unit before producing the final herbaceous plant chip in a size corresponding to the final application. That is, chips of various sizes may be required depending on the application of the final herbaceous plant chips, and in the case of various uses and required dimensions, the reference fragments are formed rather than being cut at once to the size for each end use, and then, Segmentation into each required dimension is advantageous in terms of mass production and process automation.

Thus, while the present specification illustrates the case of cutting into 3 cm sized fragments, the present invention is not limited to these dimensions merely illustrated, and the various sizes of the application of the final herbaceous plant chips that must be provided through the system of the present invention. It can be set to any size as long as it is comprehensive.

In addition, in the case of producing only herbaceous plant chips for specific purposes, the fragmentation step and the fragmentation step described below may be integrated to form a herbaceous plant chip corresponding to the final required size in one step.

In addition, although the present embodiment has been described in detail with respect to length, in addition, it may be necessary to subdivide the longitudinally divided skin in the previous step of removing the stomach.

Such longitudinal subdivision may be accomplished, for example, by applying an appropriate vibration during conveyor conveyance to align and arrange the cylindrical side up, and then by applying an appropriate pressure from the top to achieve a longitudinal subdivision, or transfer. In the course of the route, or using a longitudinal cutting blade implemented as a separate processing station.

Such longitudinal subdivision may also be implemented in a manner that multiplexes to the appropriate dimensions using one or more blades in the nutrient operation performed in the subtidal removal step. As such, incorporating the longitudinal subdivision step in the ablation step can improve the efficiency of the ablation step.

In addition, as described above, it is preferable that the drying is continued by hot air drying or the like even during such a fragmentation process.

[Sterilization and Preservative Treatment]

Corn stalk fragments cut into fragments of desired dimensions are transferred to sterilization and preservative treatment steps.

The sterilization and preservative treatment step (see FIG. 5) may be implemented to form sterilization and preservative spraying chambers separately to perform sterilization and preservative treatment step by step or collectively, and installed on the conveying conveyor 2. The shower head 20 may be used to spray the preservative from the preservative source 22 onto the conveyor 2 to continuously sterilize and preservative the corn stalk fragments passing through the predetermined stage 18. In this stage 18, it is suitable to provide an ultraviolet radiation source or the like and perform sterilization treatment such as ultraviolet sterilization at the same time.

Such preservative treatment improves the efficiency of maintaining and preserving the mechanical and chemical properties of the final herbaceous plant chips by removing microorganisms present in natural corn stalks and inhibiting subsequent microbial influx and proliferation.

Substantially, consumption takes place simultaneously with the manufacture of herbal plant chips, and in addition, such sterilization and preservative treatment may not be necessary if there is no fear of deterioration of properties due to decay or the like during this subsequent processing, but in practice, wood chips Sterilization and preservative treatment can have a very important meaning in order to maintain their mechanical and chemical properties and purity until the moment they are utilized for various uses as a substitute.

Also, during the sterilization and preservative treatment process, it is suitable to improve the fixing efficiency of the preservative and the like while reducing the moisture content of the corn stalk fragments by, for example, heating or hot air drying, in a range that does not reduce the preservative spreading efficiency. Do.

[Fragmentation]

The fragments, which have undergone the fragmentation step and the sterilization and preservative treatment steps, are essentially plant chips that can be used as a substitute for wood chips. However, this 3 cm herbaceous plant chip can be shredded to an appropriate size depending on the various end use applications mentioned at the outset. For example, a 3cm herbaceous plant chip may be transferred to a pulp mill or the like without a separate fragmentation step and used in an existing pulp manufacturing process, or may be substantially pulverized into a fibrous state when used in a board such as MDF. In addition, it may be used as a building exterior material which is fragmented into particles of a suitable size of a few mm level and utilizing texture.

Thus, the detailed parameters of the segmentation process performed in this segmentation step can be properly adjusted according to the end use application of the herbal plant chips.

Similar to the above-described steps, in the segmentation step, drying may be performed in a manner such as hot air drying within a range that does not reduce the efficiency of the fragmentation processing.

[Compression and packing]

Typically, herbaceous plant stems have a significantly lower density than other materials such as wood. Thus, the amount of herbal plant chips substantially corresponding to wood chips has a significantly larger volume than wood chips. Therefore, the transportation of herbaceous plant chips to the bulk in bulk is significantly higher transportation costs than wood chips. Such excessive transportation costs lower the economics of herbaceous plant chips and also weaken the competitiveness for wood chips.

In this regard, the inventors have tested that the herbal plant chips can be pressed to a level substantially corresponding to the density of the wood, and even to about 1/10 the volume of the bulk of the herbal plant chips in the bulk state. Found that it can.

Therefore, it is suitable for herbal plant chips to be compressed and packaged prior to final commercialization. As such a compression packaging method, various methods known in various fields may be used. By way of example, it is possible to collect the fractionated herbal plant chips in a suitable metering vessel, and then press them using a high pressure press or the like and carry out a suitable sealed packaging. In addition, as shown in FIG. 6A, the chip carried by the conveyor 2 or the like is accumulated in a packaging bag (or a fixed-quantity packaging bag 24) where automatic weighing is primarily performed, and then as shown in FIG. 6B. As described above, the packaging bag 24 itself is compressed by using hydraulic presses 26a and 26b, for example, to achieve a predetermined level of compression and simultaneously seal the packaging bag 24 to form a compression sealing package 28. May also be used. Of course, it is also possible to improve the compression efficiency and antiseptic effect by vacuuming the inside of the packaging bag while the exhaustion is performed simultaneously with the compression of the packaging bag 924 to improve the compression efficiency.

Of course, in such a pressing and packaging step, it is suitable to be accompanied by drying by a suitable method such as hot air drying.

[dry]

As described above, herbaceous plants such as corn, which are first harvested, contain up to 60-70% of moisture, and this moisture content not only degrades the various mechanical and chemical properties of the herbaceous plant chips, but also the final processed herbaceous plant chips. Significantly reduces the storage and storage efficiency.

In this regard, it is appropriate that the final herbaceous plant chips have a water content of substantially 12% or less, although there are some variations depending on the end use application.

Thus, in order to reduce the water content of the first 60-70% to a water content of 12%, it is suitable that after the initial harvesting step, continuous drying is carried out throughout the processing system of the present invention up to packaging.

This is particularly important when the system of the invention is implemented as a mobile unit and miniaturized.

Moreover, it is suitable to have a control system provided with the moisture content measuring instrument which can measure the moisture content of a herbaceous plant chip, and the thermocouple etc. which measure the temperature of a hot air. With such a configuration, the drying operation can be stopped when the target moisture content required for the final herbal plant chip is achieved.

In addition, the drying step may be implemented in such a manner as to blow hot air to the workpiece conveyed by the conveying means such as a conveyor between each working step as well as each working step.

Although various well known drying methods can be used in the system of the present invention, it is suitable to use a heating and forced blowing method because the drying efficiency is not only good, but also for example, defoliation and foreign material removal by forced blowing This is because synergistic effects such as the efficiency of the step can be further improved can be obtained.

Of course, after harvesting only corn fruit, by leaving the corn stalks left for about a week, it is possible to use a method of harvesting after lowering the water content to 20-30%. In this case, the gap is already formed between them due to the difference in dry shrinkage between the inner shell and the outer shell due to natural drying, so that the inner core can be easily removed with little effort without applying a special inner core removal process as described above. There is an additional advantage.

In addition, instead of being accompanied by drying operations throughout the process, it is also possible to provide specific drying stations and to dry up to the target moisture content in only one or a few drying-only steps. This is particularly advantageous if the herbal plant chips are broken into substantial fibrous states or ground to small particles at levels that can be dissipated by hot air. In the case of providing such a drying-only step, it is more efficient to be carried out before the defoliation and genus removal step, since the defoliation and genus removal treatment can be made more efficiently in the state where drying is completed.

Herbal plant chips produced according to the system of the present invention have mechanical and chemical properties that can be used in virtually any field where wood chips are used, and thus can be used as a substitute for wood chips and utilize waste resources that are discarded. Therefore, it is competitive in that costs other than processing costs are not substantially required.

In addition, not only in terms of the above-mentioned economic efficiency, but also compared to the extremely limited forest resources, which are exhausted worldwide, only corn grown in vast farmland in the United States and China produces hundreds of billions of tons of corn stalks every year. In view of the fact that most of them are left to be discarded, the method and system for producing herbal plant chips of the present invention prevents depletion of limited forest resources and realizes efficient utilization of waste resources.

Although the herbaceous plant production method and system of the present invention have been described in detail through specific processing steps and embodiments of each step, the details of detailed technical embodiments and structures thereof as illustrated in the present specification may vary depending on a given environment. Those skilled in the art will readily recognize, within the scope of the present invention, efficient processing methods for performing actual processing according to a given environment. Accordingly, the scope and concept of the present invention should be defined by the configuration described in the appended claims, and should not be limited to the details of the embodiments described above.

1 is a process flow diagram of a method and system for producing herbal plant chips of the present invention.

2 is a photograph of a typical harvester.

3 shows a process of aligning harvested herbaceous plant stems using a comb shaped roller;

FIG. 4 is a view continuously showing the defoliation and foreign material removal step using a brush roller and the inner layer removal step using a hopper, a cutting blade, and a chisel. FIG.

5 shows sterilization and preservative treatment steps.

6A and 6B illustrate a compression wrapping step.

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

2: conveyor 4: comb-shaped roller

8: brush roller 10: blower

12: Hopper 14: cutting blade

16: chisel 20: shower head

22: preservative source 24: packing bag

26a, 26b: hydraulic press

Claims (22)

In the herbal plant chip production method, Harvesting herbaceous plant stems from farmland, A drying step of drying the herbaceous plant stem, Defoliation to remove leaves from herbaceous plant stems, Genus removal step to remove genus of herbaceous plant stem, A method of producing a herbaceous plant chip, comprising a fragmentation step of fragmenting the outer shell of the genus to a predetermined size. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing sterilization and preservative treatment of the herbal plant chips after the fragmentation step. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising a segmentation step after said fragmentation step, the segmenting step being of a size suitable for use of the final herbal plant chip. 4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising the step of press packaging the herbaceous plant chips as a final step. 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the drying step is repeated continuously until the final processing step. 5. The method of claim 5, wherein the drying step is a herbaceous plant chip production method consisting of a hot air drying method with heating and forced air blowing. The method of claim 6, wherein the drying step is controlled by a water content measuring means and a thermocouple, and supplies hot air to the transfer step between each processing step. 4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the harvesting step is performed by a harvester having a harvestable portion that is adjustable in height. 4. The herbaceous plant chip production according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the defoliation step is performed by a pair of rotating brush rollers rotating in opposite directions, the rotational direction being a direction for promoting the conveyance of the workpiece. Way. In herbal plant chip production system, Harvesting means for harvesting herbaceous plant stems from farmland, Drying means for drying herbaceous plant stems, Defoliation means for removing leaves from herbaceous plant stems, Genus removal means for removing genus of herbaceous plant stems, A herbaceous plant chip production system comprising fragmentation means for fragmenting the outer shell of the genus to a predetermined size. 11. A herbaceous plant chip production system according to claim 10, further comprising sterilization and preservative treatment means downstream of said fragmentation means, which perform sterilization and preservative treatment of the herbal plant chips. 11. A herbaceous plant chip production system according to claim 10, further comprising fragmentation means downstream of said fragmentation means, the fragmentation means being fragmented to a size suitable for use of the final herbaceous plant chip. 13. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to any one of claims 10 to 12, further comprising press packaging means for press-packing the finished herbaceous plant chips. 13. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to any one of claims 10 to 12, wherein said drying means performs drying continuously until the final processing step. 15. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to claim 14, wherein the drying means is hot air drying means accompanied by heating and forced blowing. The method according to any one of claims 10 to 14, wherein the harvesting means is a harvester, The processing means after the drying means are integrally integrated to constitute a single mobile unit, The single mobile unit is connected to and connected to the harvester, herbaceous plant chip production system for producing herbaceous plant chips simultaneously with the harvest from the farmland. The method of claim 16 wherein the single mobile unit can be separated from the harvester, Further comprising means for conveying the herbaceous plant stem harvested by said harvester to said single mobile unit. The method according to any one of claims 10 to 12, wherein the harvesting means is a harvester, The processing means after the drying means is constituted as a plant established remotely, A herbaceous plant chip production system further comprising conveying means for conveying the harvested and collected herbaceous plant stems to the plant. 19. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to claim 18, wherein the plant is fixedly installed at a plurality of places in or near the harvest. 16. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to claim 15, wherein the drying means has a moisture content measuring means and a thermocouple for controlling the drying amount, and supplies hot air to the workpiece conveyed between each processing means. 13. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to any one of claims 10 to 12, wherein the harvesting means is a harvester having a harvestable section. 13. The herbaceous plant chip production system according to any one of claims 10 to 12, wherein the defoliation means is composed of a pair of rotary brush rollers rotating in opposite directions, the rotation direction being a direction for promoting the conveyance of the workpiece. .