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Wet anaerobic storage of corn stover can provide a year-round supply of feedstock to biorefineries meanwhile serving an active management approach to reduce the risks associated with fire loss and microbial degradation. Wet logistics systems employ particle size reduction early in the supply chain through field-chopping which removes the dependency on drying corn stover prior to baling, expands the harvest window, and diminishes the biorefinery size reduction requirements. Over two harvest years, in-field forage chopping was capable of reducing over 60% of the corn stover to a particle size of 6 mm or less. Aerobic and anaerobic storage methods were evaluated for wet corn stover in 100 L laboratory reactors. Of the methods evaluated, traditional ensiling resulted in

The state‐of‐technology for corn stover harvest is a multi‐pass system that collects the stover after grain harvest. An alternative is a single‐stream system where the grain and stover are harvested as a bulk material co‐stored and preserved by anerobic fermentation, and finally, co‐transported to a biorefinery. In the present work, four single‐pass whole‐plant bulk systems were compared with a conventional multi‐pass bale system. The single‐stream systems consisted of the harvest of corn grain and a portion of the stover fraction. Four machine configurations were simulated. This work predicted that a multi‐pass bale system would result in a material cost of 111.80 $2021 Mg–1 stover DM delivered to the biorefinery gate. Alternatively, the lowest cost single‐stream system was the self‐propelled forage harvester (SPFH) configured with the whole‐plant header, which delivered feedstock for 74.76 $2021 Mg stover DM–1. In addition to machine configuration, a sensitivity analysis was performed to understand important drivers of feedstock cost. These analyses revealed that feedstock cost increased with moisture content, fertilizer price, and biorefinery size, and decreased with harvest season length, crop yield, and grower participation. This work demonstrated that single‐stream systems could reduce corn stover feedstock costs in comparison with state‐of‐technology systems. © 2022 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining published by Society of Industrial Chemistry and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recalcitrance of lignocellulosic feedstocks to depolymerization is a significant barrier for bioenergy production approaches that require conversion of monomeric carbohydrates to renewable energy sources. This study assesses how low‐cost modifications in the supply chain can be transformed into targeted pretreatments in the context of the entire bioenergy supply chain. This research aims to overcome the physiochemical barriers in corn stover that necessitate increased severity in downstream conversion in terms of chemical loading, temperature, and residence time. Corn stover samples were inoculated with a selective (Ceriporiopsis subvermispora) and nonselective (Phanerochaete chrysosporium) lignin‐degrading filamentous fungal strains, then stored aerobically to determine the working envelope for fungal pretreatment to achieve lignin degradation. Dry matter loss and gross chemical makeup of corn stover varied by the length of treatment (2 and 4 weeks) and by the moisture content of the treated corn stover samples (40% and 60%, wet basis). Dry matter loss in P. chrysosporium inoculated biomass was elevated compared to C. subvermispora inoculated biomass; however, treatment also induced additional chemical composition changes suggestive of depolymerization. These results highlight that fungal treatment approaches must balance the loss of convertible material with the potential for reduction in recalcitrance. Techno‐economic assessment (TEA) of fungal pretreatment in a short‐term queuing system indicated the viability of this approach compared to conventional queuing operations. Total queuing system cost was estimated at $1.65/ton of biomass stored. After applying the credit of $1.48/ton from energy savings in the conversion phase using fungal pretreated biomass, the total system cost was $0.80 lower than traditional biomass queuing approach. While the TEA results suggested that treating biomass with C. subvermispora is the most economically viable storage method in the designed fungal‐assisted queuing system, future research should focus on additional fungal depolymerization such as those observed in the P. chrysosporium inoculated biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]