Description: California Pellet Mill offers production of pelleting equipment and pellet systems for animal feed, biomass, waste recovery, and adjacent industries. 

Speaker: Enrique Zarate, Operations Manager. After working for John Deere Power Systems for 20 years, Enrique worked for Eaton Corporation then returned to Waterloo to manage the operations of the California Pellet Mill.  Currently he oversees the operations at the Airline Circle facility while a new site is under construction north of the Municipal Airport.

What is a pellet mill? 

A pellet mill, also known as a pellet press, is a type of mill or machine press used to create pellets from powdered material. Pellet mills are unlike grinding mills, in that they combine small materials into a larger, homogeneous mass, rather than break large materials into smaller pieces.

What is the history of pelleting? 

The nourishing content of the 19th century's animal feed was an inspiration for more compact and more palatable feeds. Technological advancements made it happen and introduced the pelleting process in the early 1900s. Thus, the first form of feed pelleting process started to be used in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe.

How does a pellet plant work?

The process of pelletizing combines mixing of the raw material, forming the pellet and a thermal treatment baking the soft raw pellet to hard spheres. The raw material is rolled into a ball, then fired in a kiln or in travelling grate to sinter the particles into a hard sphere. A pelletizing plant normally has four process steps namely (i) receipt of raw materials, (ii) pretreatment, (iii) balling, and  (iv) induration and cooling.