Storage of woodchips in pressed bales

- Storage dynamics of woodchip pressed in bales wrapped with waterproof sheets were assessed.
- Bales made with poplar and black locust woodchip and stored covered and uncovered.
- During the storage, the temperature of bales and air was similar.
- No variations on moisture contents and LHV were observed in all treatments.
- This storage method can be considered an alternative storage technique.

Transportation and storage are two mainly critical operations of biomass supply chain because the transport must be performed using specific trucks, while in storage large areas are required. The goal of this work is to evaluate if the woodchip stored in pressed bales wrapped with waterproof sheets, as well as being a viable solution to reduce the storage area, is also a valid storage technique.The study was carried out in northwest Italy whereby pressed bales made of woodchip produced by two different tree species (poplar and black locust) were stored by two different methods (covered and uncovered).During the whole storage period the internal temperature values of bales were similar to air temperature values in all storage systems. Furthermore, no significant variations were obtained from two tree species tested between initial and final values of moisture contents (55% for poplar and 44% for black locust) and LHV (7.92 MJ kg− 1 for black locust and 7.04 MJ kg− 1 for poplar).This storage method, although it does not allow an adequate woodchip drying, could be considered an acceptable alternative to other storage techniques because it does not show losses in terms of energy and dry matter for a period of two years.