Optimizing Biomass Supply Chains for Efficient Bioenergy Production: Engineering Solutions for Quality and Quantity

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. Jaya Shankar Tumuluru
Dr. Pramod Pandey
Dr. Jagannadh Satyavolu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• biomass feedstock types
• quality and quantity challenges
• mechanical preprocessing
• chemical and thermal pretreatments
• supply chains