SOUTH AMERICA: INDUSTRIAL ROUNDWOOD SUPPLY POTENTIAL

South America has substantial potential to expand its forest plantations and raw material supply. From 1997 to 2005, South America had a high annual growth rate in the production of industrial roundwood, with Brazil and Chile being the most important countries. In the same period, Asia had the only negative regional production growth rate in the world, and China became the largest round wood importer in the world. This paper summarizes the status of production, consumption, imports, and exports of industrial roundwood and forest products in South America. Produc-tion and exports from South America have continually increased at annual growth rates exceeding the forestry sector in general and the U.S. in particular. Based on timber growing investments to date, a strong timber production and forest products manufacturing sector has developed in the Southern Cone countries of Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, and is increasing in other countries in Latin America. There will be continued opportunities for forest plantations and new manufacturing facilities throughout South America, tempered somewhat by perceived country financial and political risks. These opportunities will allow South America to increase its share of world production and increase imports to North America and to Asia

The Surprising Role of Endogenous Calcium Carbonate in Crab Shell-Mediated Biosorption of Pb (II)

Crustacean shells, waste from the seafood industry, have been identified as a potential sustainable material for the adsorption of lead, a potent heavy metal found in the discharge of industrial processes. The dynamics and kinetics of its performance were evaluated in batch experiments under pH, temperature, time, and initial concentration. A unique and non-intuitive key finding was that among the native components of the crab shell matrix, i.e., chitin, protein, and calcium carbonate, calcium carbonate was instrumental in sequestration. The role of protein was minimal, whereas the efficiency of chitin in lead complexation was linked to the lead atomic radius, which, of the crab shell components, we determined was very prone to interacting with chitin

BIOMASS TO ENERGY IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES: SUPPLY CHAIN AND DELIVERED COST

Supply chain and delivered cost models for seven feedstocks (loblolly pine, Eucalyptus, natural hardwood, switchgrass, Miscanthus, sweet sorghum, and corn stover) were built, simulating a supply of 453,597 dry tons per year to a biorefinery. Delivered cost of forest-based feedstocks ranged from $69 to$71 per dry ton. On the other hand, delivered cost of agricultural biomass ranged from $77.60 to$102.50 per dry ton. The total production area required for fast growing feedstocks was estimated as between 22,500 to 27,000 hectares, while the total production area for feedstocks with lower biomass productivity ranged from 101,200 to 202,300 hectares (corn stover and natural hardwood, respectively). Lower delivered cost per ton of carbohydrate and million BTU were found for loblolly pine, Eucalyptus, and natural hardwood. In addition, agricultural biomass had higher delivered costs for carbohydrate and energy value

THERMO-MECHANICAL PULPING AS A PRETREATMENT FOR AGRICULTURAL BIOMASS FOR BIOCHEMICAL CONVERSION

The use of thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP), an existing and well known technology in the pulp and paper industry, is proposed as a potential pretreatment pathway of agriculture biomass for monomeric sugar production in preparation for further fermentation into alcohol species. Three agricultural biomass types, corn stover, wheat straw, and sweet sorghum bagasse, were pretreated in a TMP unit under two temperature conditions, 160 ºC and 170 ºC, and hydrolyzed using cellulase at 5, 10, and 20 FPU/g OD biomass. Wheat straw biomass was further pretreated at different conditions including: i) soaking with acetic acid, ii) longer steaming residence time (15 and 30 min), and iii) refined at lower disk gap (0.0508 and 0.1524 mm). Preliminary results showed that carbohydrate conversion increased from 25% to 40% when the TMP temperature was increased from 160 to 170 ºC. Carbohydrate conversion was relatively similar for the three biomasses under the same pretreatment conditions and enzyme loading. Acetic acid soaking and refining at a reduce disk gap increases carbohydrate conversion. Further studies within this technological field to identify optimum process and TMP conditions for pretreatment are suggested

Larch Biorefinery: Technical and Economic Evaluation

In this study a forest biorefinery concept based on larch wood was technically and economically evaluated. Two slightly different cases of a larch-based biorefinery were compared to conventional kraft pulping. The wood chips of Larix sibirica (Lebed.) were pre-extracted (PE) and washed with water prior to pulping, in order to generate an additional sugar side-stream. The sugars were hydrolyzed into monosugars, which were then fermented by Bacillus coagulans into lactic acid. The lactic acid needs to be purified before sold to the market. By pulping the pre-extracted wood chips with anthraquinone (AQ) and polysulfide (PS), the pulp yield loss was reduced. The pulp was then bleached (O-D0-Ep-D1-P). The products of this larch biorefinery are bleached softwood pulp and lactic acid. Three process cases were simulated: conventional kraft pulping, PE-PSAQ with 0.5% PS, and PE-PSAQ with 2% PS, in terms of mass and energy balances. Considering the availability of larch resources, this kind of a biorefinery could suitably be located in Siberia, Russia. Market prices were collected, and based on the simulation results, cash flows were determined. Sensitivity analysis was carried out, and investment costs were estimated. Based on the simulation with the addition of a lactic acid production line to an existing pulp mill, the payback time for the investment costs would be about 16 months