Corn stover is emerging as a viable feedstock for producing bioethanol from renewable resources. Dilute-acid pretreatment of corn stover can solubilize a significant portion of the hemicellulosic component and enhance the enzymatic digestibility of the remaining cellulose for fermentation into ethanol. In this study, dilute H2SO4 pretreatment of corn stover was performed in a steam explosion re...

A direct shear cell to measure the shear strength and flow properties of chopped switchgrass, wheat straw and corn stover was designed, fabricated, and tested. The shear strength measured at various normal stresses was found to be significantly different. Shear strength for all three chopped biomass types measured at a particular normal stress was not significantly different. The R value of the...

A grain combine was equipped with a whole-plant corn head and modified to produce single-pass, whole-plant corn harvesting with two crop streams: grain and stover. Capture of potential stover DM varied from 48% to 89% for leaves, from 49% to 92% for stalks, and was greater than 90% for husks and cobs, depending on corn head height. Stover aggregate moisture varied between 36% and 50% (w.b.), an...

Therefore, enhancing the quality of grain sorghum stover may offer an opportunity to add value to the overall Nearly 3 million hectares of grain sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L). system when post grain harvest stover residue is used Moench] are harvested in the USA each year. It may be possible to add value to crop and animal systems by enhancing the digestibility as a forage base for livestock. of...

BACKGROUND Enzymes for plant cell wall deconstruction are a major cost in the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. The goal of this research was to develop optimized synthetic mixtures of enzymes for multiple pretreatment/substrate combinations using our high-throughput biomass digestion platform, GENPLAT, which combines robotic liquid handling, statistical experimental design an...

Two studies were conducted to optimize use of alkaline-treated corn stover and wheat straw and distillers grains as partial corn replacements. In Exp. 1, a finishing experiment used 30 pens (12 steers/pen) of calf-fed steers (initial BW = 374 ± 23.9 kg) with a 2 × 2 + 1 factorial arrangement of treatments with 6 replications per treatment. Factors were grind size, where corn stover was processe...

Highlights Dielectric permittivities of switchgrass and corn stover in the radio frequency range were calculated. Prediction models achieved R 2 > 0.9, except for loss factor material motion. The factors different when static motion, but dielectric constants similar. Abstract . properties biological materials are relevant developing moisture content sensors. However, little is known abou...

[1] A spatially explicit life cycle water analysis framework is proposed, in which a standardized water footprint methodology is coupled with hydrologic modeling to assess blue water, green water (rainfall), and agricultural grey water discharge in the production of biofuel feedstock at county-level resolution. Grey water is simulated via SWAT, a watershed model. Evapotranspiration (ET) estimat...

Dry-grind ethanol plants have the potential to reduce their operating costs and improve their net energy balances by using biomass as the source of process heat and electricity. We utilized ASPEN PLUS software to model various technology bundles of equipment, fuels and operating activities that are capable of supplying energy and satisfying emissions requirements for dry-grind ethanol plants of...

A life-cycle assessment (LCA) of corn ethanol was conducted to determine the reduction in the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for corn ethanol compared to gasoline by integrating biomass fuels to replace fossil fuels (natural gas and grid electricity) in a U.S. Midwest dry-grind corn ethanol plant producing 0.19 hm y 1 of denatured ethanol. The biomass fuels studied are corn stover an...