Combine and Blower Equipment Adaptation for Biomass Preprocessing

Problem Statement: Thermochemical conversion of corn-soy rotation crop residues is the greatest domestic opportunity to produce low-carbon fuels and sequester carbon to advance farm soil quality. These crop residues must undergo harvesting, drying, storage, size reduction, and other preprocessing steps to lower overall costs, risks, and variation in quality. An effective approach to preprocessing crop residues can be implemented with commercially available equipment, however, certain equipment modifications can significantly improve the overall process. Project Approach: Preprocessing crop residues will be improved by modifying combine and air blower equipment. The combine will be modified to support modern round baler features for single-pass collection of crop residue materials. The air blower equipment will be modified to stabilize and dry the baled residue materials. Together, these two modifications will significantly lower the ash & moisture contents, reduce size reduction energy costs, improve logistical efficiency, and mitigate storage losses. The overall goal is to design, model, and demonstrate a complete approach to effectively preprocessing crop residues for thermochemical conversion. Phase I Efforts: The Phase I project efforts will focus on modifying the air blower equipment to evaluate how size reduction, moisture, and bale density affect bale stabilization and drying. The Phase II project will research, develop, and demonstrate the overall preprocess from crop residue harvesting with a combine modified for single-pass round baling through bale storage. Commercial Applications: The proposed technologies for cost-effectively providing high quality crop residues contribute to bioenergy and livestock applications. Bioenergy applications include gasification, pyrolysis, and other thermochemical methods used to convert biomass into fuel and biochar. The biochar coproduct meets federal criteria for farm soil amendment and soil carbon sequestration. Preprocessing and other technology advances that lower the barriers to sustainably producing low-carbon fuels from crop residues can therefore lead to improved farm profitability and soil quality. These preprocessing advancements can also reduce the costs of supplying higher quality crop residue materials for livestock feed applications.