Lignocellulosic plant biomass like corn stover and switchgrass is harvested and packaged in bales that are delivered in flatbed trucks. Unlike granular feedstocks that have a high density and are free flowing, bales have low density, typically 160-200kg/m3 . They come in bulky packages of biomass that are either round, square, or rectangular, and require man-operated handling equipment like forklifts and telescopic loaders to unload and load them. Weighing stations with weigh bridges for truck commonly available at elevators and ethanol plant can be used for biomass. Weighing stations would need to have the necessary handling equipment such as forklifts to unload bales in a minimum amount of time. However, it must be noted that the logistical cost for handling are higher with bales than with grain, which can use automated handling conveyors. The development of innovative concepts for automatic unloading of bales from trucks and their stacking in a storage building is needed for commercial utilization of biomass on a large scale.

Handling of Preprocessed Feedstock

Preprocessing biomass into bulk particulate solids will increase the feedstock density and thus enable a large quantity of feedstock hauled per truck to the facility. It also enables the use of automated handling equipment for granular feedstock that is commonly available in the industry. Densifying operations have already been discussed extensively in the Biomass preprocessing section and the Operations to produce dense biomass section, and so will not be discussed here. Trucking cost to the plant and inbound logistics cost will be reduced by densification. As was noted before, the cost of densification can be very high. While the economics of densification had looked less favorable under low world petroleum prices and relaxed environmental policy, recent high prices of petroleum fuel and efforts to reduce global carbon emissions make the use of densification a viable option to reduce feedstock delivery cost. Improvements in densification and reductions in cost will make this approach a more viable option than using bales directly.