Research Article Thorough Characterization of Brazilian New Generation of Eucalypt Clones and Grass for Pulp Production Fernando José Borges Gomes, 1 Jorge Luiz Colodette, 1 Auphélia Burnet, 2 Larisse Aparecida Ribas Batalha, 3 Fernando Almeida Santos, 1 and Iara Fontes Demuner 1 1 Department of Forestry Engineering, Federal University of Vic ¸osa, Campus Vic ¸osa, 36570-000 Vic ¸osa, MG, Brazil 2 Centre Technique du Papier, BP 251, 38 044 Grenoble Cedex 9, France 3 Department of Chemistry, Federal University of Vic ¸osa, Campus Vic ¸osa, 36570-000 Vic ¸osa, MG, Brazil Correspondence should be addressed to Fernando Jos´ e Borges Gomes; fernando.gomes@ufv.br Received 17 October 2014; Revised 14 January 2015; Accepted 29 January 2015 Academic Editor: Timothy Martin Copyright © 2015 Fernando Jos´ e Borges Gomes et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Eucalypt wood is becoming the most important raw material for the pulp industries in South America. However, due to the high wood cost in comparison to other raw material sources, nonwoody materials are also being investigated aiming at pulp production. In this way, this paper aimed at the evaluation of eighteen eucalypt clones obtained from the Brazilian Genolyptus project, regarding their potential characteristics for pulp production. Aiming at the same goal, two species of elephant grass were also evaluated as alternative raw material sources. hrough the analyses of the anatomic and chemical characteristics, ive eucalypt clones and one elephant grass species were indicated for pulp production and bioreinery application. he results of this study indicate the high technological quality of Eucalyptus clones evaluated and indicate that they can be used for bioreinery applications since they have the suitable characteristics. In general, the eucalypt clones are less moist and denser and contain fewer minerals and extraneous materials than the elephant grass species, which make them more attractive for utilization in deconstruction studies aiming at production of bioproducts. 1. Introduction Biomass sources such as hardwood and sotwood are the main raw materials for bioreinery application, since they are largely used in the pulp mills and deliver the suitable characteristics to the inal products with competitive costs. In this context, eucalypt is becoming the most important raw material. he major interest in eucalypt wood comes from its relative low production cost in certain regions, for example, in South America, due mainly to high forest productivity and high pulping yield. It is very well known that wood quality is a factor of extreme importance when the goal is the pulp production with high industrial yield, low cost, and high quality. Wood characteristics like iber anatomy and chemical composition are expected to afect its processability, that is, ease of deligniication and the quality of the pulp products [1, 2]. Chemical structures may vary among diferent wood species and even among eucalypt clones. Many studies have been done in order to increase wood productivity and improve its quality aiming at the pulp production through the selection of clones with better performance and crossings between them [3, 4]. Good results have been observed; for example, the average productivity of the Brazilian eucalypt forests increased from 24 m 3 /ha/yr in 1980 to 41 m 3 /ha/yr in 2010, representing a 71% increase in productivity of planted forests in Brazil [5]. In spite of wood to be a consolidated raw material for the pulp industry and bioreinery applications, alter- native sources of biomass have been investigated to wood replacement, for example, elephant grass. High productivity plants such as elephant grass (30–45 bone dry t/ha/yr) can Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Forestry Research Volume 2015, Article ID 814071, 10 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/814071