The compositional and functional quality of lignocellulosic biomass impacts their utilization as feedstocks for ethanol production. However, these compositional and functional qualities are in turn skewed by the assembly system used for the biomass feedstock retrieval and delivery. Accessing different levels of biomass tonnage may require different harvesting, storing, and preprocessing operations, which can impact feedstock quality. For example, the mean and variance of corn stover composition is in part a function of the harvested fractions. Concepts and relationships of accessed biomass tonnages and the associated biomass quality will be presented.
