Biomass feedstock harvesting equipment modified

Southeast Farm Press
By Leanne Lucas, University of Illinois
Nov. 16, 2011 2:28pm

Researchers at the University of Illinois are making progress in the continual effort to develop sustainable and cost-effective processes for harvesting and collecting biomass feedstock.

Alan Hansen, a professor in agricultural and biological engineering (ABE) at the University of Illinois, is part of a team working with the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) to determine the main obstacles in current processes and equipment that could limit their application in biomass feedstock harvesting.

“Part of our work is to assess how well existing equipment functions and what modifications we need to make to this equipment to ensure that it can handle miscanthus harvesting adequately,” said Hansen.

“These machines are generally set up to harvest crops like hay and forage. There is some degree of uncertainty related to these machines working in miscanthus, which is a much denser, taller crop, or even switchgrass, a shorter grass.”

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