Environment and Harvest Time Affects the Combustion Qualities of Miscanthus Genotypes

Abstract

The reasons for these requirements can be summarized as follows. Biomass with moisture contents below Miscanthus spp. are high-yielding perennial C 4 grasses, native to 200 to 250 g kg Ϫ1 fresh matter can be stored safely Asia, that are being investigated in Europe as potential biofuels. Production of economically viable solid biofuel must combine high without the danger of self ignition (Clausen, 1994) and biomass yields with good combustion qualities. Good biomass com-burns more efficiently while ash lowers the heating value bustion quality depends on minimizing moisture, ash, K, chloride, N, of the biomass and causes slagging of the boiler heat and S. To this end, field trials at five sites in Europe from Sweden exchangers (Hartmann et al., 1999). High levels of K to Portugal were planted with 15 different genotypes including M. ϫ are undesirable because it decreases the ash melting giganteus, M. sacchariflorus, M. sinensis, and newly bred M. sinensis point, but critical levels will depend on combustion techhybrids. Yield and combustion quality at an autumn and a late winter/ nique. Chloride can lead to corrosion through reaction early spring harvest were determined in the third year after planting with water to form HCl or with K to form gaseous when the stands had reached maturity. As expected, delaying the KCl, both of which are corrosive and reduce boiler life harvest by three to four months improved the combustion quality of (Baumbach et al., 1997). Furthermore, high chloride all genotypes by reducing ash (from 40 to 25 g kg Ϫ1 dry matter), K (from 9 to 4 g kg Ϫ1 dry matter), chloride (from 4 to 1 g kg Ϫ1 dry concentrations can lead to emissions of dioxine and matter), N (from 5 to 4 g kg Ϫ1 dry matter), and moisture (from furane (Siegle and Spliethoff, 1999). Nitrogen concen-564 to 291 g kg Ϫ1 fresh matter). However, the delayed harvest also trations in biofuels need to be as low as possible to decreased mean biomass yields from 17 to 14 t ha Ϫ1 . There is a strong minimize fertilizer off-takes and to reduce emissions interaction among yield, quality, and site growing conditions. Results of NO x during combustion. To avoid SO 2 emissions, show that in northern regions of Europe, M. sinensis hybrids can be biomass S concentrations also need to be as low as recommended for high yields (yielding up to 25 t ha Ϫ1 ), but M. sinensis possible. (nonhybrid) genotypes have higher combustion qualities. In mid-and To date, most research on Miscanthus sp. as an energy south Europe, M. ϫ giganteus (yielding up to 38 t ha Ϫ1 ) or specific crop has concentrated on maximizing the yield of a high-yielding M. sinensis hybrids (yielding up to 41 t ha Ϫ1 ) are more genotypes selected, there were four acquisitions of M. ϫ gigan-

Biomass valorisation of Arundo donax L., Miscanthus × giganteus and Sida hermaphrodita for biofuel production

“…Lignocellulose consists of three components: lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose, and their content significantly varies in different types of biomass (Jørgensen et al, 2007). If lignocellulose contains more lignin, it is more suitable for direct combustion (Hodgson et al, 2010), while higher cellulose and hemicellulose contents make it more suitable for liquid fuel production (Lewandowski et al, 2003). investigated the lignocellulose content of Arundo donax L., and determined the following contents: cellulose -41.6%, hemicellulose -23.6% and lignin -24.6%.…”

“…Our investigations only partly corroborate the literature references, with cellulose content of 40.1%, hemicellulose content of 27.2% and lignin content of 26.4%. Such significant differences in the investigated lignocellulose biomass are to be expected because lignocellulose content is influenced by soil, location and harvest time (Barglowicz, 2014;Bilandžija et al, 2016;Lewandowski et al, 2003;Olsen and Plackett, 1999).…”

An Index of Competition Reduces Statistical Variability and Improves Comparisons between Genotypes of Miscanthus

“…Two harvest dates are considered: (i) the autumn harvest during the flowering phase at maximum yield, hypothesized as being favourable for bioethanol production [1,2], and (ii) the winter harvest at the end of winter after leaf loss and nutrients translocation into the rhizome, more favourable for the environment and combustion [3]. Most studies performed in Europe involved a single clone of Miscanthus x giganteus [4] because of its high potential for biomass production in temperate climates [5].…”

Biofuels Get in the Fast Lane: Developments in Plant Feedstock Production and Processing

“…Dry mass yield was estimated in the range of 400 to 44000 kg/ha and was higher when harvesting was performed in the autumn for all countries [134]. Southern Europe had consistently higher yields reaching maxima of 44000 kg/ha in northern Greece when Miscanthus × giganteus was harvested in September and about 35000 kg/ha in Portugal when Miscanthus × giganteus and M. sacchariflorus were harvested in the autumn [134][135][136]. Ethanol production has been estimated to be in the range of 5000 to 12000 L/ha depending on location [108,123].…”