Introduction:

Energy balance trial allows to carefully allocating any inputs for field production of the crop as well as, dosing precisely the amount of energy required for each process, thus determining the efficiency when energy transformation inside the crop is required for a certain task.

Method:

Castor oil plant (Ricinus communis L.) as an energetic crop was field drillet and cultural practices were undertaken for crop growth and at harvest, the whole plant was collected where each constituent was tested for its energy concentration. Thus, to reach for an energy balance calculation; bilological energy figures from higuerilla plant were compared with technical and physical energy application for crop cultivation and processing.

Results:

Entire energy applied for crop growth is 28% higher that energy obtained from higuerilla plant. Also, biomass of whole castor oil plant except seeds generates twice energy than oil from seeds, so whole crop harvesting has to be promoted.

Conclusion:

Oil from sedes should de used as biomaterial, since there is a positive balance by 15%.

        · resumo em Espanhol     · texto em Inglês     · Inglês ( pdf )