The rise in pellet consumption has resulted in a wider variety of materials for pellet manufacture. Thus, pellet industry has started looking for alternative products, such as wastes from agricultural activities, forestry and related industries, along with the combination thereof, obtaining a broad range of these products. In addition, the entry into force of EN ISO 17225 standard makes wood pellet market (among other types) possible for industry and household purposes. Therefore, wastes that are suitable for biomass use have recently increased. In this study, the main characteristics of ten kinds of laboratory-made pellets from different raw materials were analyzed. Thus, we have focused on the most limiting factors of quality standards that determine the suitability for biomass market, depending on the kind of pellet. The results showed considerable differences among the analyzed pellets, exceeding the limits established by the standard in almost all cases, especially concerning ash content and N and S composition. The requirements of the studied standard, very demanding for certain factors, disable the entry of these densified wastes in greater added value markets.

The Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) techniques and concretely the study of the burning profile provide information that can be used to estimate the behaviour of the combustion of carbonous materials. Commonly, these techniques have been used for the study of carbons, but are also interesting for the analysis of biomass wastes, due to the different species present on the wastes affect directly to its thermal properties. In this work, techniques of thermal analysis have been applied to compare the behaviour of different wastes coming from olive oil mills. From these results, it is remarkable that the Concentrated Olive Mill Waste Water (COMWW) presents more unfavourable conditions for its combustion.