What is Biomass

Biomass, as a renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms, such as wood, waste, (hydrogen) gas, and alcohol fuels. Biomass is commonly plant matter grown to generate electricity or produce heat. In this sense, living biomass can also be included, as plants can also generate electricity while still alive. The most conventional way in which biomass is used however, still relies on direct incineration. Forest residues for example (such as dead trees, branches and tree stumps), yard clippings, wood chips and garbage are often used for this. However, biomass also includes plant or animal matter used for production of fibers or chemicals. Biomass may also include biodegradable wastes that can be burnt as fuel. It excludes such organic materials as fossil fuels, which have been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum.

Industrial biomass can be grown from numerous types of plants, including miscanthus, switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow, sorghum, sugarcane, and a variety of tree species, ranging from eucalyptus to oil palm (palm oil). The particular plant used is usually not important to the end products, but it does affect the processing of the raw material.

Although fossil fuels have their origin in ancient biomass, they are not considered biomass by the generally accepted definition because they contain carbon that has been "out" of the carbon cycle for a very long time. Their combustion therefore disturbs the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.

Biomass is carbon, hydrogen and oxygen based. Nitrogen and small quantities of other atoms, including alkali, alkaline earth and heavy metals can be found as well. Metals are often found in functional molecules such as the porphyrins which include chlorophyll which contains magnesium.

Plants in particular combine water and carbon dioxide to sugar building blocks. The required energy is produced from light via photosynthesis based on chlorophyll. On average, between 0.1 and 1 % of the available light is stored as chemical energy in plants. The sugar building blocks are the starting point for the major fractions found in all terrestrial plants, lignin, hemicellulose and cellulose

Biomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms, plants or animals.[4] The mass can be expressed as the average mass per unit area, or as the total mass in the community.

Heating wood or Biomass or other organic matter in a gasifyer is done to liberate the volatile elements inside the wood. These gasses when released can be used for heating, or ignited in an internal combustion engine to make power.

The Gasifyer - This is the process of turning Biomass into carbon monoxide and hydrogen by reacting the raw material (wood) at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen. Without oxygen, the wood can't burn so it transforms into gas. This gas can be used as fuel in an internal combustion engine.

Possibly the most efficient means of converting organic fuels into energy available to the common man today?

What this means is, that the construction of a relatively simple machine, all kinds of organic waste such as, twigs, small branches, wood chips, pine cones, rice and corn husks, even chicken litter waste, can be gasified to produce a volatile gas which can be burned to make heat, or used in an internal combustion energy to make power?

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