Biomass Wood

Biomass is any form of organic material which can be used as a fuel source. There are therefore many different kinds of biomass, including straw, grasses and energy crops. Energy crops are purpose grown forms of biomass for the sole purpose of energy production. Another large resource of biomass material is the waste from food crop production, for example wheat straw, corn stalks and cobs. Hemp is another biomass material being used more and more for building materials. The residue left over is an excellent biomass fuel as it share many of the combustion characteristics of wood. However, currently by far the popular form of biomass energy is wood. Obviously using wood as a heating fuel is nothing new. However upgrading wood into pellet created a much more efficient and convenient fuel source for stoves / boilers.

Biomass Bioenergy and Carbon Neutral

Biomass energy can play a key role in reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and also reducing carbon emissions. One of the reasons that our use of biomass can reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, is because it is already part of the carbon cycle. Fossil fuels such as oil and gas as trapped carbon, and are not part of the current cycle. Biomass during growth absorbs carbon dioxide, and during combustion the carbon released means there is the same amount of carbon present. In fact, after wood biomass combustion, there is a percentage of residual ash. This ash can be used to improve the condition of soils, and help more biomass grow. By placing biomass ash in to the soil, this is trapping some of the carbon from the atmosphere into the ground. This therefore means that biomass can be carbon negative form of energy.

Biomass Pellets and Future Fuel Pellets

Biomass in its raw form, is not a practical fuel source. Differences in energy density and moisture content are just a few examples between different biomass resources. Therefore is is very hard to create combustion systems which can use all these different fuels. By processing the raw materials into pellets give them similar characteristics in terms of energy density, size, shape and moisture content. It is then much easier to design compact pellet burners to use a wide range of biomass in pellet fuel form. There are still differences in terms of how the pellets burn based the different biomass materials. For example wood process very little ash, where straw generates more.

The Advantages of a Biomass Boiler

There are various different forms of heating systems and fuel sources. The boiler market over the last 40 years has been heavily dominated by oil, gas and electric boilers. However there has been a steady growing interest in wood biomass boilers since the beginning of the 21st century. There are log and wood chip biomass boilers, however one of the faster growing and most popular types of biomass boiler is the wood pellet boiler. Wood pellet boilers are a very low maintenance type of biomass boiler. This means they are preferred by many people who are used to the low maintenance of their oil, gas or electric boiler.