Every year the UK produces millions of tonnes of waste which is landfilled. There are over over [ ]Mt waste wood alone produced in the UK each year. In addition there are large areas of land (e.g. disused landfill sites, coal-mines and water treatment facilities where energy crops could be grown to add remediation and improve land quality. It is well known that fast growing species such as willlow are efficient at sequestering heavy metals and other contaminants from the ground. When the crops are harvested the contamination is effectively transformed from a dispersed contamination on land to a much more concentrated form in the crop. Energy can then be extracted from the crop and the residues from the conversion process are easier to manage than the original dispersed contamination. However, care must be taken to ensure that the contaminated components are sequestered rather than being released to air, water or land in a way that could have negative environmental impacts. This work will study existing and new plantations of energy crops to evaluate their utility in remediating land and the net environmental impact of this approach. We will also monitor the behavrour of the envrionmental contaminants in a range of different conversion processes to establish the pathway they take under different conditions. This is important for evaluating the environmental impact of the system but it also provides useful information for engineers charged with designing the conversoin plant, so that they know how to adjust process conditions, materials and predict any changes in performance associated with the waste fuel. The focus of this work is energy crops grown on contaminated land. However, its application is much wider than that. The UK has a limited amount of land that can be used to provide renewable bioenergy. However, a vast quantity of wastes are produced that could sustainably deliver energy. In order to do this sustaianbly and effiiciently it is impmortant that engineers have access to data on how the contaminants in waste behave during conversion and this proejct will provide that, allowing more efficient design, lower environmental impact and supporting industrial deployment of these facilities.

Bioenergy is now becoming a commercial reality, ranging from cofiring in power stations, small units for power and/or heat, as well as transport fuels such as biodiesel. This SUPERGEN bioenergy project will continue to deliver the scientific background to the provision and utilisation of bioenergy, as well as innovative concepts for new applications. The research brings together growers, biologists, agronomists, economists, scientists and engineers in a unique multi-disciplinary team that will tackle the challenges associated with the further development of this renewable resource in a sustainable manner. The extended programme examines production and utilisation related factors that affect quality and suitability of a biomass fuel for different end uses, with a particular emphasis on the energy crops, willow and miscanthus, as well as more diverse fuel streams including residues and co-products. The work programme ranges from practical issues associated with fuel handling and preparation, to fundamental studies of genetics, agronomy and chemistry that affect both desirable and undesirable fuel characteristics. In addition, key engineering solutions for the successful development of biomass thermal conversion technologies are sought through (a) an understanding of the basic science in thermal conversion and (b) component and plant engineering issues. These topics are developed further in this renewal proposal through advanced engineering models complemented by experimental studies in a range of combustion, gasification and pyrolysis units.In addition, the scope of the project has been widened in this continuation to consider challenges in fuels and chemicals production from biomass, integrated with energy production in a bio-refinery approach.