TY - JOUR

T1 - Valorization of landscape management grass

AU - Krenz, Lina Maja Marie

AU - Pleissner, Daniel

N1 - © The Author(s) 2022 Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Funding was provided by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through the project “Realising Dynamic Value Chains for Underutilised Crops” (RADIANT), grant agreement No. 101000622.

PY - 2024/2

Y1 - 2024/2

N2 - The aim of this review was to investigate and develop possible material and energetic utilization strategies for grass from nature conservation areas, which is harvested late in the year and currently largely unused. Compared to freshly harvested grass, it contains less proteins and higher contents of fibers. Landscape management grass has therefore poor forage quality and is not suitable as animal feed. Due to its high calorific value, grass biomass can be used as a material for combustion. However, combustion technology must be adapted to the high contents of inorganics. Fresh grass is a widely used feedstock in biogas plants; late-harvested grass however shows lower biogas yields. The integrated generation of solid fuel and biogas represents a promising combination of combustion and digestion. Grass biomass can also be used in a green biorefinery (GBR) or a lignocellulose biorefinery (LCB). A GBR uses fresh green biomass, producing a protein concentrate (recovery of 30–60%, w/w) and a fiber fraction (recovery of up to 95%, w/w). It is supposed that late-harvested grass is less suitable due to low contents of exploitable components. An LCB operates on dry lignocellulosic feedstock and produces a wide range of carbohydrate products. To date, no LCB or GBR operating on late-harvested grass from semi-natural grasslands was described, and further research on the practical implementation is needed.

AB - The aim of this review was to investigate and develop possible material and energetic utilization strategies for grass from nature conservation areas, which is harvested late in the year and currently largely unused. Compared to freshly harvested grass, it contains less proteins and higher contents of fibers. Landscape management grass has therefore poor forage quality and is not suitable as animal feed. Due to its high calorific value, grass biomass can be used as a material for combustion. However, combustion technology must be adapted to the high contents of inorganics. Fresh grass is a widely used feedstock in biogas plants; late-harvested grass however shows lower biogas yields. The integrated generation of solid fuel and biogas represents a promising combination of combustion and digestion. Grass biomass can also be used in a green biorefinery (GBR) or a lignocellulose biorefinery (LCB). A GBR uses fresh green biomass, producing a protein concentrate (recovery of 30–60%, w/w) and a fiber fraction (recovery of up to 95%, w/w). It is supposed that late-harvested grass is less suitable due to low contents of exploitable components. An LCB operates on dry lignocellulosic feedstock and produces a wide range of carbohydrate products. To date, no LCB or GBR operating on late-harvested grass from semi-natural grasslands was described, and further research on the practical implementation is needed.

KW - Biorefinery

KW - Fibers

KW - Grass

KW - Material recovery

KW - Protein

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126873154&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/cbde9aec-1222-3876-a39d-d328a3ddbf68/

U2 - 10.1007/s13399-022-02568-0

DO - 10.1007/s13399-022-02568-0

M3 - Scientific review articles

AN - SCOPUS:85126873154

VL - 14

SP - 2889

EP - 2905

JO - Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery

JF - Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery

SN - 2190-6815

IS - 3

ER -