OPTIMAL USE OF BIOMASS IN AN ISOLATED ENVIRONMENT: CASE STUDY AT MIYAKO ISLAND, JAPAN

By YOSHIYUKI SHINOGI, TERUHITO MIYAMOTO, KOJI KAMEYAMA and CHEN YAN 
National Agricultural Research Organisation, Japan,
National Institute for Rural Engineering
yshinogi@affrc.go.jpi

Abstract 

THIS PAPERbriefly outlines an ongoing research project and some research outcomes
focusing on sugarcane.
Five research topics were identified, namely:
1)  development of technologies for farmland application of converted biomass from sugarcane molasses             such as compost, char, digestive slurry and vinasse;
2)  clarification of optimal allocation of biomass and optimal operational conditions for conversion plants;
3)  development of groundwater conservation technologies with biomass, mainly focusing on nitrogen;
4)  development of technologies for introduction of energy crops and optimal CO2gas application to crops; and
5)  clarification of favourable conditions for sugar-ethanol by-production systems using greater-biomass sugarcane.
Our target biomasses are bagasse and cattle wastes. Five conversion plants, including two pyrolysis, one composting, one bio-gas and one gasification, have already been installed
to properly and effectively convert biomass. Farmland application technologies for char and digestive slurry with bagasse have mainly been studied.
Also, vinasse (bio-ethanol by-product; distilled residue) is another biomass target.
We analysed vinasse for return of by-products to the farmland as a way to achieve sustainability and devote efforts to the application of vinasse to farmland.
Of course, safety to crops, the soil and water environment should be confirmed first.
Previous experiments revealed vinasse does not have bad impacts on crop growth. Also, we
conducted studies to clarify the favourable conditions for introduction of greater biomass sugarcane to develop sugar-ethanol by-production systems.
A favourable new variety of sugarcane was previously selected. In addition, a sugaryield equation for great-biomass sugarcane was developed from observed data.


KEYWORDS: Biomass, Refinery System, Conversion.
www.issct.org
 Agricultural Engineering          Proc. Int. Soc. Sugar Cane Technol., Vol. 27, 2010