Compared with other energy products, biomass is highly variable. Chemical and physical attributes differ widely between different types of biomass. But even biomass samples of the same type may differ from year to year, field to field, and from different locations in the same field.
Biomass variability leaves the nation’s bioenergy producers with few means to valuate feedstocks that adequately encompass feed handling and conversion performance.
The BFNUF’s in-house biomass characterization laboratory provides a solution. The laboratory allows researchers to pinpoint important variables such as chemical composition and flowability to align feedstock characteristics with conversion technologies and end products. Capabilities also include automated dilute-acid pretreatment with enzymatic hydrolysis, a faster, less costly method to analyze conversion potential of bioenergy feedstocks.
Characterization capabilities include: