Valutazione di colture lignocellulosiche in ambiente mediterraneo ai fini della produzione di bioetanolo di seconda generazione

Abstract

In the last years there has been a growing interest in energy biomass crops especially in the industrialized countries, in relationship to the pressing demands to exploit new energetic sources. The new technologies that can make fuel from lignocellulosic biomass, open up interesting prospects for some species that have proved particularly promising for the characteristics of perenniality and productivity: Arundo donax, Cynara cardunculus Miscantus spp and even if they have, however, still points weakness related to propagation techniques, harvesting and storage, the availability of genotypes and mechanization. At the end of the introduction of energy crops in the Mediterranean area have been taken to poliennal three species. Specifically, for the Arundo donax and miscantus studies have been conducted on the response to irrigation and nitrogen fertilization, while for the cardoon, autumn winter crop, were evaluated different genotypes. The species reached the highest dry biomass production of the third year of planting. The Arundo has provided the highest dry biomass production of about 26 t ha-1, Miscanthus production reached approximately 20 t ha-1; the Miscantus species is no longer produced from V years due to the lack of irrigation and fertilization. Nitrogen fertilization did not affect the production behavior of the species in the study, while the reduced irrigation administration in reduced yields, with effects more pronounced in the miscanthus. The genotypes of Cynara cardunculus showed a great variability; S16 (20 t ha-1) and C5 (16 t ha-1) were more genotypes productive. Important informations was obtained on the potential in bioethanol production that reached 3000 liters ha-1 in arundo.