Biomass in Ecology
– Biomass refers to the mass of living biological organisms in an area or ecosystem.
– It can represent the biomass of specific species or the biomass of a community or habitat.
Biomass in Energy
– Biomass is used as a renewable energy source, produced through agriculture, forestry, or aquaculture methods.
– Bioenergy is derived from biological material.
– Solid fuel forms of bioenergy exist.
– Biofuel is a type of biomass used for energy production.
– Energy crops are cultivated for their biomass.
Biomass in Biotechnology
– Biomass can represent the mass of microorganisms used in the production of industrial products like enzymes and medicines.
– Examples of emerging bioproducts include biofuels, bioenergy, biochar, starch-based and cellulose-based ethanol, bio-based adhesives, and biochemicals.
– Biomass is used in biological wastewater treatment processes, such as the activated sludge process.
– It denotes the mass of bacteria and other microorganisms that break down pollutants in wastewater.
– Biomass is a component of sewage sludge.
Biomass in Other Contexts
– Biomass can refer to an Earth observation satellite named Biomass.
References
– Houghton, R. A. (2008). Biomass. In Encyclopedia of Ecology (pp. 448–453). Oxford: Academic Press.
– Bioenergy analysis can be found in the IEA.
– Energy.gov provides information on bioenergy basics.
– The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) explains biomass.
– The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a special report on renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass
Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how biomass is defined, e.g. only from plants, from plants and algae, from plants and animals. The vast majority of biomass used for bioenergy does come from plants. Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy with potential to assist with climate change mitigation.
