Assessment of Wood Biomass Productivity from Anthocephalus macrophyllus Forest Plantation for Energy Production

Abstract

Antocephalus macrophyllus is one of the fast-growing species widely planted in an industrial forest plantation in Indonesia. Since its cultivation has been mainly expanded, the interest to explore A. macrophyllus wood for further utilization to produce various valuable products is also growing. Nevertheless, there was no available information about energy production generated from A. macrophyllus forest plantation in recent times. Therefore, this work assessed its suitability for energy purposes. The result showed that the harvest cycle of A. macrophyllus plantation in third year demonstrated the most appropriate energy feedstock since it could obtain the highest wood productivity (43.20 ton/ha) with high annual energy potential (211.97 GJ/ha/year). According to the wood physicochemical properties, we found that higher lignin content contributed to an increase in calorific value. Meanwhile, the high presence of moisture had a converse effect. Finally, we suggested that the forest plantation of A. macrophyllus was promising for developing renewable and sustainable energy production in the future.