Acta Technologica Agriculturae 1/2015 Miroslav MACÁK et al.Increasing concerns about climate change mitigation and rising oil prices are creating an unprecedented interest in the development of economical and convenient renewable energy fuels. Recent advances in biomass feedstock development and conversion technologies have created new opportunities for using agricultural land as a means of producing these renewable fuels in larger quantities than relying on wood and agricultural residues alone. Dedicated agricultural feedstocks such as wheat straw, maize stover, rape stover, switch grass, miscanthus, etc. and short rotation willow can abate with high quality petroleum running out in the next 50 years. World governments and the petrochemical industry alike are looking at biomass as a substitute refinery feedstock for liquid fuels and other bulk chemicals. New large plantations are being established in many countries, mostly in the tropics, but also in China, North America, Northern and Central Europe, and also in Russia (Samson et al., 2000). From a total energy use standpoint, however, biomass provides a relatively small percentage of the world's current energy needs. Most of the total energy use is found in more developed countries, not in regions with large populations. Biomass has the potential to provide a much greater share of the world's energy, particularly in the USA. Renewable biomass removes CO 2 from the atmosphere for biomass production and then releases this CO 2 back into the atmosphere when burned.There are different methods of biomass processing for energy purposes. In last years, the pelleting of biomass has become the most used technology for processing of biomass. There are different systems of pellets manufacturing, but the efficiency of biomass using depends upon the type of biomass. Pellets are usually made of lucerne, miscanthus, maize stover, wheat straw, and prickly lettuce.Lucerne pellets have been known to generate dust and fines because of repeated handling and transport. During transport, this product loses or gains moisture, which may affect its quality. Therefore, there is a need to manufacture pellets that are not prone to breakage but still can be palatable to animals. Tabil (1996) conducted an experiment to determine the effect of chop quality, process and machine variables on the quality of lucerne pellets. Three different qualities of lucerne chops, namely low, intermediate and high quality, were used in the experiment.An experiment was conducted by Mani et al. (2004), where maize stover was compacted in a piston cylinder with three pressures, i.e. 5, 10, and 15 MPa, at three moisture content levels, i.e. 5, 10, and 15 % (wb), to produce briquettes. The total energy requirement to compress and extrude briquette was in the range of 12-30 MJ.t -1 . The briquette density was in the range of 650-950 kg.m -3 , increasing with pressure and biomass moisture. Moisture content and pressure had a significant effect on briquette density, durability and stability. Maize stover produced h...
The experiment was carried out on a private farm in Karak village in 2017 to study the effects of the method of throwing the straw behind the combine harvester and some operational factors on the performance of a small rectangular baler. The field was planted with wheat (Triticum spp.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare). A small rectangular baler type (Ćicoria 454), Italian made was used to pick up and bale the straws, which were thrown as heaps and windrows in the field. The results obtained showed that picking up the straw as windrows improved the baler’s performance over the heaps in terms of number of mechanical units stops, time require for baling, fuel consumption, baler’s throughput capacity, and baler’s throughput efficiency, on the other hand, the forward speed also affected the baler’s performance when the straw was thrown as windrows; By increasing the forward speed, the slippage percentage increased but the fuel consumption, baler’s throughput efficiency, and baler’s throughput capacity decreased.
Pellets made of biomass for energy purposes can be considered as a significant type of biofuel. The efficiency of biopellets depends upon many factors; therefore, in our paper we have focused our attention on measuring the physical properties of biopellets made from lucerne hay and maize stover. The chemical composition of biomass materials is characterised. Biopellets were made on the hydraulic press and their durability was measured on the own instrument designed according to the ASABE S269.4 standard. As the biomass particle size plays an important role in the process of pellets producing, the particle size distribution was determined. According to our experiments, both pressure and diameter had no effect on the durability of pellets for both materials, especially with the pressure force of 100 MPa and 125 MPa, whereas with increasing the pressure force to 150 MPa for the die diameter 20 mm for both lucerne hay and maize stover, a significant increment occurred in the durability of pellets.
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