Management of Biomass Waste from Small and Medium Farms: Pyrolysis as a Sustainable Approach

Modern agriculture in the European Union produces about 1,466 billion tonnes of biomass waste annually, most of which are burnt in the field, with significant greenhouse gas emissions and loss of resources. Pyrolysis is well established as a thermal chemical conversion technology, but its integration into a consistent management framework for small and medium-sized enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe is still limited. The study combined a systematic review of recent literature and empirical data from EcoNEXUS industrial symbiosis mapping in western Romania to study how decentralised pyrolysis can transform agricultural residues into three valuable products at a temperature controlled by 300 to 700 ° C: biochar, bio-oil, and syngas. The methodology includes conceptual synthesis, regional biomass flow characteristics, representative cooperative technology, and economic scenario modelling (10-15 farms, 250-500 ha, 2,500-3,000 t of biomass per year) and comparative environmental evaluation of open field burning and valorisation based on pyrolysis. The results show that optimised slow and fast pyrolytic configurations can generate three income streams from the same raw material, convert approximately 40- 75 % of carbon into stable biochar, generate annual cooperative incomes of around EUR 1.6 to 1.8 million at realistic European prices, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 60 to 75 t CO2 per year from a representative 1,000 ha agriculture system. The present research proposes a framework for using pyrolysis as a technology for transforming wood waste into resources.