Aarhus University Seal

Extensively managed areas to grow more biomass

A new research project at Aarhus University will be developing the production, harvesting and utilization of biomass from extensively farmed and natural areas.

[Translate to English:] Udviklng af krav og specifikationer til lette bjærgningsmaskiner er en af mange vigtige komponenter i et nyt forskningsprojekt på Aarhus Universitet, som skal styrke grundlaget for at producere, høste og udnytte biomasse fra ekstensive arealer. Foto: Janne Hansen

Large amounts of biomass from extensively managed and natural areas can be grown and used more efficiently than is the case today. This could be in the form of optimising the use of grass for biogas, improved recycling of nutrients and a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

 

This is the ambition of the research project “Biomass from extensively managed areas (BioXeks)” which has just received 6.5m DKK from the BioBase research initiative, which DCA – Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture coordinates.

 

Senior scientist Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen is the project leader and he points out that the project will require a high degree of interdisciplinary research to raise the level of knowledge within a number of areas.

 

- The project focuses on establishing how much biomass can be produced from wetlands and vulnerable areas and on the technological requirements and specifications needed for harvesting and recovering the biomass from such marginal lands. We will in addition be looking at methods of storing and pretreating wet biomass and at the further processing of wet biomass into biogas, and we finally need to design and optimise the whole management chain from field to storage and to the processing plant.

 

The project will be working with wet biomasses, an area where there is not much experience. Previous experience with the harvesting and recovery of biomass from marginal lands is based on the occasional silage cut and on the management of dry biomass from drier field conditions. However, water levels are expected to rise in the future as a result of a less frequent clearing of water weeds and the removal of drains from, for example, peat soils.

 

- This means that in the future the grass is more likely to be harvested wet, and there may therefore be potential in growing new high-yielding grasses in some waterlogged areas. We therefore need to examine the consequences of these issues in relation to biomass production, greenhouse gas emissions, and also storage and handling, says Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen

 

The research project has been divided into a number of work packages. One of them deals specifically with biogas where the intention is to further develop and optimise the technology for the recovery of grass from extensively managed areas for biogas production.

 

- We can increase the energy production and minimise the loss of greenhouse gases by adopting a new process design with additional steps, pre-hydrolysis and the addition of enzymes, is the opinion of Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen about one of the tasks in the project that runs until June 2017.

 

Further information: Senior scientist Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen, Department of Engineering, telephone: +45 8715 7638, e-mail: claus.soerensen@eng.au.dk

 

Facts: The project “Biomass from extensively managed areas (BioXeks)” has received 6.5m DKK from the BioBase research initiative, which is coordinated by DCA – Danish Centre for Food and Agriculture. The project runs until June 2017.