Effect of water stress on renewable energy from sugarcane biomass

Rubens Duarte Coelho, Jonathan Vásquez Lizcano, Timóteo Herculino da Silva Barros, Fernando da Silva Barbosa, Daniel Philipe Veloso Leal, Lucas da Costa Santos, Nathalia Lopes Ribeiro, Eusímio Felisbino Fraga Júnior and Derrel L. Martin

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2019, vol. 103, issue C, 399-407

Abstract: The higher heating value (HHV) of sugarcane biomass components has been well documented; however, the effect of different soil water levels (abiotic stress) during the growing season on HHV has not been assessed for this energy crop. Drip irrigation in sugarcane production presents a potential to be a disruptive technology for sugarcane mills in terms of water-energy-nexus, making this inextricable relationship more efficient. The objective of this article was to quantify the higher heating value and useful energy from biomass partitions of different sugarcane varieties (Saccharum spp.) drip irrigated at four water levels and four maturation processes (drying off intensity prior to harvesting time); this information is not available in literature to date. The contribution of this article to the state of the art of knowledge are: a) the heating values for sugarcane partitions: bagasse, leaves and pointers did not vary significantly for varieties, water stress levels under drip irrigation and maturation processes; conversely, the heating value for the sheath biomass partition vary significantly for varieties. The average heating values for all treatments for the bagasse, sheaths, leaves and pointers were 18.16, 17.21, 17.64 and 17.84 MJ kg−1 respectively; b) the useful energy in sugarcane is almost totally dependent on the biomass produced per unit of area; drip irrigation levels and sugarcane variety traits are important in establishing the bioenergy productivity per area; the average value obtained for all treatments was 660.29 GJ ha−1 year−1 (36.90 Mg dry mass ha−1 year−1). Drip irrigated sugarcane crops at higher water levels in the soil, resulted a higher intensive land use and less deforestation pressure at sugarcane bioenergy production areas.

Keywords: Water use efficiency; Water productivity; Drip irrigation; Higher heating value; Bioenergy; Potential energy; Saccharum spp (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118308207
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:103:y:2019:i:c:p:399-407

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2018.12.025

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().