How Wood Fuels’ Quality Relates to the Standards: A Class-Modelling Approach

Michela Zanetti, Corrado Costa, Rosa Greco, Stefano Grigolato, Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo and Raffaele Cavalli
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Michela Zanetti: Università degli Studi di Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Laboratorio Analisi BioCombustibili, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Padova, Italy
Corrado Costa: Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (CREA), Centro di Ricerca per l’Ingegneria e le Trasformazioni Agro-alimentari (CREA-IT), Via della Pascolare 16, 00015 Monterotondo Scalo, Rome, Italy
Rosa Greco: Università degli Studi di Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Laboratorio Analisi BioCombustibili, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Padova, Italy
Stefano Grigolato: Università degli Studi di Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Laboratorio Analisi BioCombustibili, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Padova, Italy
Giovanna Ottaviani Aalmo: Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Pb 115, NO-1431 Ås, Norway
Raffaele Cavalli: Università degli Studi di Padova, Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Laboratorio Analisi BioCombustibili, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Padova, Italy

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: The quality requirements of wood biofuels are regulated by a series of harmonized international standards. These standards define the technical parameter limits that influence the quality of solid biomass as a fuel. In 2014 the European reference standard for solid biofuel was replaced by the International ISO standard. In the case of wood chips, the main difference between the European and International standards is the definition of particle size distribution classes. In this context, this study analyses the quality of wood chips and its variation over the years according to the “former” (EN 14691-4) and “in force” (ISO 17225-4) standards. A Soft Independent Modelling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) model was built to predict the best quality of wood chips and to clarify the relationship between quality and standard parameters, time and changes in the standard regulations. The results show that, compared to the EN standards, classification with the ISO standards increases the samples belonging to the best quality classes and decreases the not classified samples. Furthermore, all the SIMCA models have a high sensitivity (>90%), reflect the differences introduced to the quality standards and are therefore suitable for monitoring the quality of wood chips and their changes.

Keywords: wood biomass; wood chips; quality; certification; standard; multivariate modelling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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