Characteristics of Comminuted Forest Biomass
Abstract
Transpirational drying and in-woods production of microchips potentially improve the economic efficiency of energy production from forest-derived feedstocks, but yield materials with moisture contents, bulk densities, and particle size distributions that differ from more conventional feedstocks. Ongoing research suggests that transpirational drying reduces the moisture content and wet-basis bulk density of forest biomass, and may affect chip size distribution. In-woods microchipping produces smaller chips and has little effect on moisture content or bulk density.