No abstract

As a fuel, biomass differs in its properties from fossil fuels and acquisition thereof for energy purposes is limited; hence, the ongoing search for new bioenergetically useful plants. The article presents the results of physical and chemical analyses of seven species of perennial grasses: tall wheatgrass, tall wheatgrass ‘Bamar’, brome grass, tall fescue ecotype, reed canary grass, giant miscanthus, and sorghum. The research involved technical and elemental analysis as well as analysis of the ash composition performed in order to determine their potential use for combustion process. The measurement results were compared with those obtained for hard coal and agricultural biomass, which is widely used in the energy industry. The results suggest that perennial grasses can successfully be combusted with similar performance to coal if burned in appropriate combustion installations.

No abstract

No abstract

The yield and kappa number of kraft pulps from tall wheatgrass, tall fescue, tall oatgrass, and Miscanthus were determined after pulping with 0.9% active alkali per 1% lignin content in raw materials. Fibre properties and test papers were also studied to evaluate the usefulness of these plants for papermaking. These results were compared with pulps prepared from birch and pine wood. Kraft pulps from the straws of grasses had yields similar to that of pulp from pine wood and lower kappa numbers than pulps from birch and pine wood. The tested pulps exhibited a favourable number of fibres in 1 g of pulp, and they resulted in papers with clearly differentiated properties from very resistant to rupture dense papers with very low air permeability, to less resistant to breaking more bulky papers.

No abstract

An experiment has been performed in four locations in Poland (Radzików, Leszno, Szelejewo and Nieznanice).Fifteen genotypes from three species (tall fescue - Festuca arundinacea, meadow fescue - F. pratensisand red rescue - F. rubra) were measured and observed during two consecutive years. Despite of phenologicalobservations (heading and flowering start dates), biometrical measurements (plant height, leaf dimension,number of generative stems etc.) and physiological trait (chlorophyll contents index) seed yield of singlepanicle, seed yield of plant and seed yield per plot (i.e. 50 plants) were determined.Significant effects of years, locations and genotypes were calculated for mentioned species for almost alltested traits. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to estimate major predictors of seed yield. It resultedin different numbers of predictors for different species. For meadow fescue five, for red fescue – three and fortall fescue – only two statistically significant predictors were selected. For all species leaf width and numberof generative stems were statistically significant and had positive weights. For meadow and red fescue – alsoseed yield from single inflorescence was significant with positive weight. Our results demonstrate that leafwidth together with number of steams and single panicle yield are the most important determinants of plantseed yield in three Festuca species.

Looking for new alternative raw materials is one of the key issues in line with a bioeconomy approach, particularly for particleboard manufacturing. In this framework, this paper presents a comparison of some physico-mechanical properties and the formaldehyde contents of particleboards made with 30% substitution of grass biomass from six perennial grass species. Our studies indicate relatively high values of mechanical properties for particleboards made with the addition of biomass from grasses with the C4 photosynthetic pathway: Miscanthus x giganteus and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). Boards made with the addition of biomass from grasses with the C3 photosynthetic pathway—tall wheatgrass (Elymus elongatus), tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea), and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne)—gave lower values of mechanical properties. The opposite results were obtained in the case of the formaldehyde content: the lowest value was measured for particleboards made with the addition of tall fescue biomass (0.1% less than the control), and the highest for switchgrass (0.9% greater than the control) and cordgrass (3.2% greater than the control). Future research should address the optimization of the manufacturing process of particleboards from perennial grasses, taking into account the needs and technical possibilities of the wood industry sector.