Dear Read,
My friend Raphael is a designer and devoted himself to the study and use of bamboo for a decade, but abandoned the subject some years ago and lives nowadays in Paris/France. There are two pulp and paper companies in Brazil using bamboo as a raw material: one is called Cepasa or Celulose e Papel de Pernambuco S. A., a pulp and paper mill of the João Santos Group located in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, the other is Penha Papéis e Embalagens, located in the state of Bahia. The second discontinued the use of bamboo for paper, but decided to use it for energy generation. Some other companies of the ceramic sector are using bamboo also for energy.
As far as I know, none of those companies are using mechanical biomass harvesters yet, although they are available as you can find easily searching Google for this topic. The mechanical harvest and chipping of bamboo is similar to the same operation with small diameter trees, but the higher silica content of bamboo causes early wear out of cutting tools. This could be the reason not to use this type of equipment, but this is only my guess.
If you want to know more about the use of bamboo in Brazil, have a look at the following article http://www.revistaopapel.org.br/noticia-anexos/1429277844_8a47ecf889f6c2e83ab532a70c82e6da_1666124705.pdf. Unfortunately you will have to translate it from Portuguese.
Best regards,
Hans J. Kleine
Florianópolis/Santa Catarina State
Brazil
De: bamboo-plantations@yahoogroups.com [mailto:bamboo-plantations@yahoogroups.com]
Enviada em: terça-feira, 12 de abril de 2016 16:34
Para: bamboo-plantations@yahoogroups.com
Assunto: [bamboo-plantations] Bamboo Biomass Mechanized Harvester / Chipper
My name is Read Flusser and I've been following this group for a while -- what a great resource! Thank you for all the great posts by experienced growers.
I have been researching commercial biomass production from bamboo for advanced biofuels at Columbia University in New York for over a year and it seems that the biggest challenge to scaled operations in higher wage areas is the mechanized harvesting equipment. The Brazilian companies working with bambusa vulgaris are supposedly harvesting mechanically according to a post by Raphael Moras de Vasconcellos-- does anyone happen to know what they were using for this? Or a contact of someone who might know these details? (Raphael's email bounced back)
Thank you for any information you can provide!
Best,
Read
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