BBRG presented the research progress on agri-pellet production in BioMass Canada Webinar

On Thursday June 2, 2022, UBC Biomass and Bioenergy Research Group (BBRG) presented its research progress on biomass pellet production from agricultural residues in a BioMass Canada Cluster Webinar. The recording of the webinar will be available on https://biomass.biofuelnet.ca/2022-webinars/.

We contributed to Activity 12: Development of logistics, pretreatment, and commercialization of agri-pellets and Activity 13: Integration and Optimization of crop residue production, processing and handling in partnership with BioFuelNet Canada. The principal investigator of Activity 12 is Dr. Shahab Sokhansanj of University of British Columbia. Activity 13 is a collaboration between Dr. Sokhansanj and Dr. Donald Smith of McGill University.

The motivation to pelletize agricultural residues is that pelletized biomass has logistical advantages over other forms of solid biomass for transport and storage. Moreover, pelletized agri-biomass fits well to the Canadian grain and wood pellet production and distribution systems.

The tasks are divided into three parts: (1) Logistics, led by Dr. Mahmood Ebadian, to optimize agri-pellet logistics and supply chains and estimate cost, energy input, CO2 emissions for agri-pellet enterprises, (2) Quality, led by Dr. Hamid Rezaei, to develop commercial grade pellets in support of commercialization of agri-pellets, (3) Storage, led by Dr. Fahimeh Yazdan Panah, to develop best practices and standards to minimize the degradation of biomass pellets during storage, handling, and transport.

We are fortunate to be able to work directly with our industrial partners at Wood Pellet Association Canada and agricultural sector partners at Wintergreen Pellets (Alberta) and Barr-Ag Ltd. (Alberta)