Vetiver System - Biomass Fuel

A paper from ICV5 by Bo Huang describes how vetiver has been used to stabilize highly fractured slopes in south China.  This in itself makes interesting reading.  The paper also describes how vetiver biomass residue from these protected slopes has been used as pellitised  fuel with good results.

Vetiver was harvested three times a year, yielding between 50 - 80 tons per ha, under quite dry conditions.


The fuel project That he describes is to produce a new energy material by adding catalyst into
amixture of by-products of eco-restoration, sawdust, straw and the plant wastes and solidifying. The project  transforms  the low quality biomass
fuel to the high quality, easily storied and transported, and high density biomass fuel which the thermal efficiency  enhanced to 40%-50%, exceeding the energy of coal.

"(1) This biomass fuel has high hydrogen content and high volatility which is easy to ignite and has high oxygen which is easy to burn and improve the combustion efficiency, therefore, there is less carbon content in the ash.
(2). This biomass fuel has low ash content (the ash content of straw normally is about 5%, the ash content of sawdust is under 1% and the ash contend of coal is usually about 20%-30%) which can be used as fertilizer.
(3). The colorific of this biomass fuel is about 3,600-4,600kcal/kg, which is almost as equally as moderate quality coal’ colorific. Due to this biomass fuel belongs to renewable resources; it could replace a part of
fossil fuels, decreasing the emissions of greenhouse gases.