Optimizing Biomass Supply Chains for Efficient Bioenergy Production: Engineering Solutions for Quality and Quantity
A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A4: Bio-Energy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 April 2026) | Viewed by 824
Editors
Interests: microbial pollution; animal waste management; pathogen fate and transport; river water quality; geographic information system; analytical chemistry; microbiology; anaerobic and aerobic treatment processes; microwave technology; ozonation technology; animal carcasses management and rendering; biomethane and solar energy; residues of antibiotics, pesticides, and herbicides; biosecurity; elemental analysis; near-infrared spectroscopy; gas and liquid chromatography; mass spectrometry.
Interests: biomass conversion; biofuels; bioproducts; novel separations; production of biogas; biohydrogen; drop-in biocoal products
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The global demand for sustainable energy has led to biomass being viewed as a viable renewable resource. However, raw biomass presents challenges such as variability in moisture, particle size, and chemical composition, affecting its suitability for bioenergy production.
Biomass Challenges
Several factors influence biomass quality and supply:
- Production: Feedstock type, land use, policy issues, and agronomic practices impact yield;
- Moisture Content: High moisture levels degrade biomass during storage, requiring more energy for drying and reducing the overall energy output;
- Bulk Density: A low density leads to higher storage costs and transportation inefficiencies, requiring more space and larger storage facilities;
- Flowability: Irregular particle sizes complicate handling and transportation, causing blockages and inconsistent feeding rates in processing equipment;
- Contaminants: Forest and agricultural residues have high ash contents, causing slagging and fouling in combustion systems, thus reducing efficiency and increasing maintenance costs.
- Generally, biomass supply systems involve the following processes:
- Harvest and Collection: This stage encompasses operations from the field to storage, involving baling for herbaceous biomass and felling for woody biomass;
- Storage and Queuing: This stage ensures biomass remains stable and prevents quality loss through covered or anaerobic storage methods;
- Preprocessing and Pretreatment: This stage includes chipping, grinding, and drying to prepare biomass for conversion, transforming it into a format compatible with biorefineries;
- Transportation: This stage involves efficiently moving biomass from one location to another via truck, rail, ship, or a combination of these three modes of transportation.
Researchers worldwide are developing feedstock supply chain systems that can supply consistent high-quality biomass to biorefineries for reliable operations. These systems have evolved based on high-capacity supply chains for commodities like grain. The various biomass preprocessing and pretreatment steps can convert biomass into high-quality feedstock to help biorefineries operate at the desired capacities. One successful biomass supply chain systems involves densifying biomass into pellets, briquettes, or cubes to improve transportation and storage efficiency. Densified products are stable, have higher energy densities, and can be transported long distances without degrading. For example, wood pellets produced in the U.S. and Canada are transported internationally for power generation.
This Special Issue explores mechanical, chemical, and thermal, preprocessing and pretreatment technologies or a combination of them, that address these biomass supply chain logistics challenges and supply consistent quality and quantity biomass to biorefineries for their reliable operation. This Special Issue also examines how the quality of biomass affects the performance of biopower, biochemical, and thermochemical conversion pathways.
Dr. Pramod Pandey
Dr. Jagannadh Satyavolu
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- biomass feedstock types
- quality and quantity challenges
- mechanical preprocessing
- chemical and thermal pretreatments
- supply chains
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