Study on the Size Reduction Characteristics of Miscanthus sacchariflorus via Image Processing

Size reduction is an important pre-processing operation for utilizing biomass as a sustainable resource in industrial-scale energy production and as a raw material for other industries. This work investigates the size reduction characteristics of air-dried Miscanthus sacchariflorus Goedae-Uksae 1 (Amur silver grass) via image processing and identifies the morphological characteristics of comminuted and screened M. sacchariflorus. At chopping lengths of 18, 40, 80, and 160 mm, 81%, 77%, 78%, and 76% of the particles, respectively, passed through a 4-mm sieve. Even a knife mill with a very small screen aperture (>1 mm) admitted over 10% of the particles. The average circularity and aspect ratio of the particles were <0.30 and >10, respectively. These results confirm that in all preparation modes, most M. sacchariflorus particles were needle-like in shape, irrespective of the type of preparation.