Woody Biomass

Biomass is any organic matter including forest and mill residues, agricultural crops and wastes, wood and wood wastes, animal wastes, livestock operation residues, aquatic plants, and municipal and industrial wastes (Bergman and Zerbe 2004). For the purpose of this encyclopedia, we will focus only on the biomass materials generated from forests and wood-processing wastes.

Annual Biomass Resource Potential
from Forest and Agricultural Resources

These woody materials can be forest residues such as thinnings or residual slash from harvest operations, wood wastes such as bark, sawdust, chips, or wood-processing wastes such as black liquor. It is estimated that nearly 5.6 million tonnes of unused wood residue is generated in U.S. sawmills yearly (Smith et al 1994).

Dry wood has roughly twice the caloric value of wet wood (Zerbe 2006) and with varying physical and chemical composition, it is useful to have an understanding of the different ways in which plant species, moisture and energy content, and ash affect biomass utilization.

This section is divided into:

• Wood Composition
• Properties of wood
• Forest Residues
• Wood-processing residues