IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v10y2017i11p1725-d116717.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing Open-Air Storage of Stumps to Provide Clean Biomass for Energy Production

Author

Listed:
  • Luigi Pari

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Antonio Scarfone

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Vincenzo Alfano

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Simone Bergonzoli

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Francesco Gallucci

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Enrico Santangelo

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari (CREA IT), 00015 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

When orchards reach the end of the productive cycle, the stumps removal becomes a mandatory operation to allow new soil preparation and to establish new cultivations. The exploitation of the removed stump biomass seems a valuable option, especially in the growing energy market of the biofuels; however, the scarce quality of the material obtained after the extraction compromises its marketability, making this product a costly waste to be disposed. In this regard, the identification of affordable strategies for the extraction and the cleaning of the material will be crucial in order to provide to plantation owners the chance to sell the biomass and offset the extraction costs. Mechanical extraction and cleaning technologies have been already tested on forest stumps, but these systems work on the singular piece and would be inefficient in the conditions of an intensive orchard, where stumps are small and numerous. The objective of this study was to test the possibility to exploit a natural stumps cleaning system through open-air storage. The tested stumps were obtained from two different vineyards, extracted with an innovative stump puller specifically designed for continuous stump removal in intensively-planted orchards. The effects of weathering were evaluated to determine the fuel quality immediately after the extraction and after a storage period of six months with respect to moisture content, ash content, and heating value. Results indicated interesting storage performance, showing also different dynamics depending on the stumps utilized.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Pari & Antonio Scarfone & Vincenzo Alfano & Simone Bergonzoli & Francesco Gallucci & Enrico Santangelo, 2017. "Testing Open-Air Storage of Stumps to Provide Clean Biomass for Energy Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-11, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:11:p:1725-:d:116717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1725/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1725/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:11:p:1725-:d:116717. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.