Abstract

Minimising dry matter losses during storage of comminuted forest fuels is desirable from both an economic and a sustainability perspective. This study examined fuel quality and amount of recovered energy during the storage of forest wood chips stored at full industrial scale at three locations, and the effect of sieving and covering piles with a water-resistant, vapour-permeable fabric. Sieving wood chips before storage, that is, reducing the number of fines smaller than 8 mm, reduced the cumulative dry matter losses to <2%, while cumulative dry matter losses after storage for 4-6 months using current practices, that is, unsieved and uncovered, reached 10.6%. The combined effect of storage management led to a value loss of 11.5%, while both covering and sieving led to lower losses, with the combination of sieving and covering giving a 1.3% value increase, and thus, increased storability.

Keywords

dry matter loss; forest fuel; fuel quality; moisture content

Published in

Energies
2022, Volume: 18, number: 8, article number: 2953

SLU Authors

• Anerud, Erik

  • Department of Forest Biomaterials and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Bergström, Dan

  • Department of Forest Biomaterials and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG7 Affordable and clean energy


UKÄ Subject classification

Wood Science


Publication Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en15082953

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/116690