BIOMASS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does biomass mean? 

• BIOMASS (noun)
  The noun BIOMASS has 2 senses:

1. plant materials and animal waste used as fuel

2. the total mass of living matter in a given unit area

  Familiarity information: BIOMASS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BIOMASS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Plant materials and animal waste used as fuel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Hypernyms ("biomass" is a kind of...):

fuel (a substance that can be consumed to produce energy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The total mass of living matter in a given unit area

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("biomass" is a kind of...):

mass (the property of a body that causes it to have weight in a gravitational field)

 Context examples 

They reproduce very quickly, yielding large amounts of oil and biomass.

(Brazilian researchers identify microalgae that can provide biofuels, Agência Brasil)

Incorporating carbon in their biomass may help subsurface microbes form calcite, a mineral made of calcium carbonate.

(Major deep carbon sink linked to microbes at volcanic island chains, National Science Foundation)

The study reports notable increase in biomass and regeneration of forests close to villages that use biogas for cooking, as compared to forests near villages without biogas provision.

(Shift to biogas helps revive forests, SciDev.Net)

Bioplastics are considered less harmful to the environment because they may be decomposed by the action of living organisms, carbon dioxide (CO2), biomass or water.

(Scientists develop biodegradable plastic from cassava starch, SciDev.Net)

Biomass is produced from microalgae which is used to extract the oil, which then serves as the raw material.

(Petrobras considers producing biodiesel from microalgae, Agência Brasil)

With three decades of data, the biologists realized that in chambers with high levels of carbon dioxide, the total biomass of the marsh sedges increased by 20%.

(High carbon dioxide can create 'shrinking stems' in marshes, National Science Foundation)

Nearly three billion people around the world are exposed to contaminants from biomass burning as a result of farming practices, deforestation, and burning wood or charcoal for fuel.

(Lung damage from agricultural fires probed, SciDev.Net)

Their results show that carbon dioxide levels expected by the end of the century should increase plant biomass by 12 percent, enabling plants and trees to store more carbon dioxide—an amount equivalent to six years of current fossil fuel emissions.

(Study Suggests Trees' Potential to Slow Global Warming in Next 100 Years, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The research looks at a large population of American women, at lab mice, and at brain tissue in petri dishes to establish a link between serious cognitive decline and the very fine particles of pollution emitted by motor vehicles, power plants and the burning of biomass products such as wood.

(The Surprising Link between Air Pollution, Alzheimer’s Disease, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Forest areas near villages where biogas was used had higher biomass, sapling abundance and species diversity compared with forest plots near villages without biogas.

(Shift to biogas helps revive forests, SciDev.Net)