Biomass pre-treatment for bioenergy – Case study 2: Moisture, physical property, ash and density management as pre-treatment practices in Canadian forest biomass supply chains

This case study discusses the merits of various pretreatment options for forest based residues using practical conditions as prevailing in Canada, such as

• moisture management by passive and active drying, covering, blending, and monitoring and modelling of moisture content;
• physical property management by chipping, grinding, sieving and machine visualization;
• ash content management by washing;
• density management by pelletizing.

The study shows that such pre-treatment processes can be very effective in upgrading the physical and chemical properties of biomass feedstock in order to facilitate and/or avoid stoppage of downstream processes. The usability and value of forest biomass for various end-uses can thus be increased by appropriate pre-treatments: they can significantly improve the quality, storability and transportability of biomass and enable more versatile end-uses, as well as cleaner combustion and energy production especially for small users.

Authors:

• Evelyne Thiffault. BioFuelNet Canada, Department of wood and forest sciences, Research Centre on Renewable Materials, Laval University, Canada
• Shahab Sokhansanj, Mahmood Ebadian, Hamid Rezaei, Ehsan Oveisi Bahman Ghiasi, Fahimeh Yazdanpanah,. BioFuelNet Canada, Biomass and Bioenergy Research Group, University of British Columbia, Canada.
• Antti Asikainen and Johanna Routa. LUKE, Finland

Download here: CS2 – Forest biomass pre-treatment