Technologies for Sustainable Biomass Supply—Overview of Market Offering

• Main Author: Jacek Flak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
• Series: Agronomy
• Subjects: value chains; agriculture; sustainability; efficiency; ICT; IoT
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/10/6/798

This article introduces a collection of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), Internet of Things (IoT), and Industry 4.0 technologies utilized in (or applicable to) biomass supply chains that constitute the current state-of-the-art along with their brief descriptions. The scoping of technologies has been conducted by means of direct interactions with bioeconomy stakeholders and technology providers, analysis of the reports from bioeconomy-related projects, literature surveys, and internet searches. It is to highlight that technology mapping investigated here is focused on commercially available tools and services, which usually come with support, thus removing the necessity for expert knowledge or unusual technical proficiency. The list with over 100 items represents the current best knowledge of its creators and it is currently available through the ICT-BIOCHAIN project platform, serving as a database with technology descriptions and capability for updating the information. The ultimate objective of the database and the platform is to serve as a common point facilitating the cross-sectorial connection, where biomass stakeholders looking for new ICT, IoT, and Industry 4.0 solutions to make their work more efficient and sustainable can browse and filter out the records of their interest and obtain the contact information of the providers.