PERENNIAL GRASSES IMPORTANT BIOMASS SOURCE FEEDSTOCK FOR BIO-BASED PRODUCTS AND BIOENERGY

摘要

Perennial grasses considered as ideal feedstock for biobased products and bioenergy production.During the last two decades several grasses have been tested at european level in the framework of research projects.According to 4FCROPS project the most importnat perennial crops for Europe are: miscanthus, reed canary grasses,switchgrass, giant reed and cardoon. Two of them (reed canary grass and miscanthus) cultivated in a commercialscale with a total area of cultivation 29500 ha. Miscanthus and giant reed established by using rhizomes or plantlets,while all the other established by seed. Their lifetime is 15 years, while for cardoon it is reporting that its rotationcycle last 4 to 5 years. In 4FCROPS the yields of these crops as well as the raw material characteristics based on thefindings of the main research projects that have been carried out in Europe the last two decades. Addionally, theeconomic viability of these crops were investigated though the developing of several economic case studies forspecific sites in EU27 when the crops cultivated in both agricultural and marginal lands as well as with low an highinputs. In the same project the environmental impact analysis of the five selected perennial crops with annual energycrops and conventional crops potato showed that the perennial crops had lower impact compared to the annual onesand the conventional crops. Currently, the perennial grasses are being investigated in three research projects entitled:OPTIMA, OPTIMISC GRASSMARGIN and EUROBIOREF.