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As a fuel, biomass differs in its properties from fossil fuels and acquisition thereof for energy purposes is limited; hence, the ongoing search for new bioenergetically useful plants. The article presents the results of physical and chemical analyses of seven species of perennial grasses: tall wheatgrass, tall wheatgrass ‘Bamar’, brome grass, tall fescue ecotype, reed canary grass, giant miscanthus, and sorghum. The research involved technical and elemental analysis as well as analysis of the ash composition performed in order to determine their potential use for combustion process. The measurement results were compared with those obtained for hard coal and agricultural biomass, which is widely used in the energy industry. The results suggest that perennial grasses can successfully be combusted with similar performance to coal if burned in appropriate combustion installations.

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The yield and kappa number of kraft pulps from tall wheatgrass, tall fescue, tall oatgrass, and Miscanthus were determined after pulping with 0.9% active alkali per 1% lignin content in raw materials. Fibre properties and test papers were also studied to evaluate the usefulness of these plants for papermaking. These results were compared with pulps prepared from birch and pine wood. Kraft pulps from the straws of grasses had yields similar to that of pulp from pine wood and lower kappa numbers than pulps from birch and pine wood. The tested pulps exhibited a favourable number of fibres in 1 g of pulp, and they resulted in papers with clearly differentiated properties from very resistant to rupture dense papers with very low air permeability, to less resistant to breaking more bulky papers.