Actual and putative potentials of macauba palm as feedstock for solid biofuel production from residues

The making of biofuel from source that aggregates multiple suitable raw materials is of great interest. An example of such source is macauba palm. Its fruit satisfies the demands for biodiesel production, and the solid residues resulting from its processing contain a series of potential fuel byproducts. Thus, our objective was to evaluate macauba fruit yield and the potential of this fruit to produce for solid biofuel. For this, the palm's productivity was assessed in a natural population, and two different scenarios of fruit yield and derived residues were analyzed: in scenario 1, the fruit yield average values were used without a priori information, while in scenario 2, the top 10% of plants in terms of number of bunch per plant were considered. Harvested fruits were quantified and processed. Solid residues had their chemical and physical characteristics determined. The fruit yield in scenario 2 was 98% higher than that in scenario 1, which did not exceed 2.32 Gg km−2 y−1 fresh fruit. Regarding residue characterization, the endocarp showed higher values of fixed carbon, lignin, bulk density and energy density than the other residues. The overall primary energies of the residues were 23.35 TJ km−2 y−1 and 44.39 TJ km−2 y−1 in scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. These findings indicate that macauba fruit is a promising source of primary and residual raw materials for biofuel production. Satisfactory production scale would be from a breeding program to maximize the fruit production of the plants, as mimicked by scenario 2

Air-drying of eucalypts logs: Genetic variations along time and stem profile

Knowledge of wood drying potential is relevant in forestry and biomaterials technology field, being directly related with timber transport, lumber properties, charcoal yield and pulping process. Using mixed models approach by REML-BLUP procedure, we aimed to evaluate the moisture content loss potential among different eucalypt genotypes, by means of genetic correlations, heritabilities, coefficients of variation and determination of wood air-drying over 154 drying days and in five tree stem heights. Moreover, we tested three possible auxiliary traits (Heartwood/Sapwood ratio, Log Circumference, and Basic Wood Density) for indirect selection on wood air-drying rate. The highest air-drying heritabilities occurred at the two most basal stem heights and only after the 98th day. However, genetic correlations across the drying measurements were considerably high from day 42. The three auxiliary traits demonstrated potential for indirect selection, suggesting the possibility of integrating wood air-drying to future Eucalyptus sp. breeding programs. There is no need to wait for industrial moisture content to carry out genetic evaluation. Besides, perform selection at trees basal region is the safest way to improve the air-drying rate of genotypes