Abstract
Eucalyptus spp. has received attention from the research and industrial field as a biomass crop because of its fast growth and high productivity. The features of this species match with the increasing demand for wood for energy production. Commonly, the wood used for energy production is converted in chips, a material susceptible to microbial degradation and energy losses if not properly stored before conversion. This study aims at investigating two outdoor storage systems of Eucalyptus wood chips (covered vs. uncovered), assessing the variation in moisture content, dry matter losses and fuel characteristics. The class size of the material was P16, which was obtained using a commercial chipper appositely searched to conduct the study. The results highlighted how the different storage methods were influenced by the climatic condition: the woody biomass covered showed the best performances in terms of dry matter losses achieving 2.7% losses vs. the 8.5% of the uncovered systems. However, fuel characteristics displayed minor changes that affected the final energy balance (∆En = −0.2% in covered; ∆En = −6.17% in uncovered). Particle size varied in both methods with respect to the start conditions, but the variation was not enough to determine a class change, which remained P16 even after storage.
Highlights
Short and medium rotation coppice (SRC and MRC) are fast-growing tree plantations that generally produce high quantities of woody biomass in productive cycles of 2 years (SRC) and5–6 years (MRC) [1]
Considering that, this study proposes the evaluation of the storage dynamics performance of P16 wood chips obtained from a eucalyptus MRC plantation in Mediterranean environment by using a storage method and two treatments
The wood chips utilized derived from a five-year-old Eucalyptus plantation at and Agro-Food Processing (CREA-IT) in Monterotondo, near Rome, Central Italy
Summary
Short and medium rotation coppice (SRC and MRC) are fast-growing tree plantations that generally produce high quantities of woody biomass in productive cycles of 2 years (SRC) and. 5–6 years (MRC) [1]. The woody biomass obtained from the plantations can be used as a renewable energy source [2] through different thermo-chemical conversion processes [3]. In Mediterranean environment, Eucalyptus plantations are having a success thanks to the use of fast growing inter-specific clones [4], suitable for employment in SRC and MRC. The most cultivated European countries are Spain and Portugal, with an amount of cropped area above 600,000 ha [5]. In Italy, the cultivated surface is approximately 70,000 ha, of which
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