Bamboo, globally renowned as being one of the
fastest-growing plants in the world with versatile applications, has gained
increasing attention during the past decades.
It is being used by millions of people around the globe as a biomass
resource for energy production, as timber for furniture making, in the food
industry and many more. So far, on the Island of Mauritius,
little to no consideration has been given to
this fascinating plant. This paper presents the physical and chemical properties of two species of bamboo—Bambusia vulgaris and Bambusia bambos, compared to sugarcane bagassefor bio-energy production. Ten samples of
each species were tested for gross calorific value (GCV), moisture, ash and
chloride content. The results show that both species have a very good potential for energy recovery with a GCV of 16.77 MJ/kg for Bambusia vulgaris and 17.44
MJ/kg for Bambusia bambos, and are
valuable sources of biomass with an average energetic yield of 717.8 GJ/ha/yr
and 1587.1 GJ/ha/yr respectively. In comparison, the GCV for sugarcane bagasse was found to be 18.33 MJ/kg with an energetic yield of
824.9 GJ/ha/yr. Simultaneously, a research survey on community acceptance and
perception of the Mauritian citizens towards the utilisation of bamboo biomass
as an alternative to fossil fuels for bio-energy production was conducted via
semi-structured questionnaires. The
questionnaires were administered to a total of 54 respondents. 3 women and 3
men were randomly interviewed in each of the 9 districts of the island.
The results show that the participants are very much aware of the many issues
related to the exploitation of fossil fuels and support the use and
implementation of renewable sources of energy for bio-energy production. Eighty percent of the participants supported the
implementation of bamboo biomass in the overall energy generation mix in a bold
move to lessen their ecological footprint.
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