Although its name suggests the opposite, biomass was the first fuel used by mankind.

In a
generic way, biomass means any mass of renewable living material present in an organism or
organisms, including part of inert material, such as hair and feathers of vertebrates or the pulp
of trees. All this set has as a common denominator that organic matter comes, directly or
indirectly, from the process of photosynthesis, which is why it is presented periodically and not
limited in time. Its development is closely linked to agricultural and forestry activities and the
waste they produce.
The energy that can be obtained from biomass comes from sunlight, which, thanks to the
process of photosynthesis, is used by green plants through chemical reactions in living cells to
take carbon dioxide from the air and transform it into organic substances. With this conversion
process, solar energy is transformed into chemical energy that accumulates in different organic
compounds and is incorporated and transformed by the animal and plant kingdom that, in turn,
transforms it through artificial procedures to obtain consumer goods.
The amount of solar energy stored in the biosphere in the form of biomass is approximately 1.5
x 1022 J, which is equivalent to an average production rate of 1.33 x 1014 W. Live biomass per
unit area is small in the oceans and large in tropical forests. The average production rate on
land is 7.6 x 1013W.
The possibilities of energy use of biomass are very different and are closely linked to the
possibility of other uses of wood and agricultural waste as raw material, food or recyclable
material. The concept of energy biomass includes materials of biological origin that cannot be
used for food or industrial purposes. It cannot be ignored that plants and other forms derived
from biomass serve man in more ways than as sources of energy, for example as food,
medicines, as building materials and, in the case of green plants, as producers of oxygen. The
nutritional aspect of biomass is nothing more than an indirect energy use, since humanity and
animals transform the energy stored in plants, through metabolic processes, into the vital
energy they need. And more than that, since in turn plants are a source of nutrients and
vitamins.
In a relatively short time, the generation of urban and industrial waste has increased in such a
way that currently its management and treatment is one of the main environmental problems of
our society. The energy valuation of the organic part of this waste, combined with selective
collection processes, constitutes a clean and effective use option.
Energy crops are a new source of energy
From an energy use point of view, biomass is characterized by having a low carbon content and
a high oxygen content and volatile compounds. Volatile compounds, with the presence of
carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen, are those that concentrate a large part of the
calorific value of biomass. Its calorific value depends a lot on the type of biomass considered
and its humidity. This characteristic, together with the low sulfur content, make it an especially
attractive product to be used energy.
It is also important to highlight the environmental aspect of biomass. Its energy use does not
contribute to increasing the greenhouse effect since the balance of carbon dioxide emissions
into the atmosphere is neutral. In effect, the carbon dioxide generated in the combustion of
biomass is reabsorbed by photosynthesis in the growth of the plants necessary for its production
and, therefore, does not increase the amount of CO2 present in the atmosphere. On the contrary,
in the case of fossil fuels, the carbon that is released into the atmosphere is the one that has
been fixed in the earth for thousands of years.
Tagged Biomass, renewable energy