Peat in Ukraine

Ukraine has sig­nif­i­cant deposits of min­er­al resources that can great­ly enhance fuel and ener­gy inde­pen­dence and the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the agro-indus­tri­al com­plex. We are talk­ing about peat deposits — an organ­ic rock that formed as a result of the decay and par­tial decom­po­si­tion of bog plants in con­di­tions of excess mois­ture and oxy­gen defi­cien­cy.

By ori­gin, peat is divid­ed into:
High peat, which forms on ele­va­tions, so its com­po­si­tion is dom­i­nat­ed (> 95%) by remains of high­land plants (pines, larch­es, sedges). It is char­ac­ter­ized by increased poros­i­ty, mois­ture capac­i­ty, and acid­i­ty, which makes it an excel­lent fer­til­iz­er for plants such as straw­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, black­ber­ries, and some dec­o­ra­tive flow­ers.
Tran­si­tion­al peat, which forms on tran­si­tion­al relief forms, there­fore, it has a high vari­abil­i­ty of botan­i­cal com­po­si­tion: the con­tent of plant remains of both types ranges from 10% to 90%.
Low­land peat, which forms in val­leys and swampy flood­plains of rivers and con­sists most­ly (>95%) of remains of veg­e­ta­tion that feeds on sur­face water bod­ies (alder, moss­es, ferns). This type of peat has low acid­i­ty and high con­tent of essen­tial min­er­als for plants (nitro­gen and phos­pho­rus).

Each type of peat is divid­ed into three sub­types, which reflect the for­ma­tion con­di­tions and indi­cate the lev­el of mois­ture, degree of decom­po­si­tion, and con­tent of woody remains. The sub­types of peat are for­est, for­est-swamp, and swamp. Sub­types of peat are fur­ther divid­ed into groups — small­er tax­o­nom­ic units of clas­si­fi­ca­tion that reflect the group of veg­e­ta­tion from which the peat was formed and are char­ac­ter­ized by a cer­tain ratio of woody, herba­ceous, and moss remains. Six groups are dis­tin­guished in each type of peat: woody, woody-herba­ceous, woody-moss, herba­ceous, herba­ceous-moss, and moss.

Phys­i­cal prop­er­ties of peat depend on mois­ture con­tent, degree of decom­po­si­tion, ash con­tent, and com­po­si­tion of organ­ic and min­er­al com­po­nents. In nature, peat den­si­ty ranges from 800 to 1080 kg/m3, while the den­si­ty of dry mat­ter is between 1400 and 1700 kg/m3. Peat mois­ture con­tent ranges from 6.4 to 30 kg/kg. Its poros­i­ty reach­es 96–97%, result­ing in sponge-like, sponge-fibrous, plas­tic-vis­cous, pow­dery, and rib­bon-lay­ered struc­tures. Peat col­or varies from yel­low to brown and from gray to graphite.

In terms of chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion, peat is a com­plex, mul­ti-com­po­nent, poly­dis­perse, semi-col­loidal sys­tem. In its unchanged state, it con­sists of a sol­id part (veg­etable residues of sol­id cel­lu­lose poly­mers and their decom­po­si­tion prod­ucts) filled with a water solu­tion. The chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of peat of dif­fer­ent types is giv­en in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1. Chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of peat

Table 2. Organ­ic com­po­nents in the chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of peat

In Ukraine, there are 1562 peat deposits with a total reserve of 1853 mil­lion tons and a total area of 639.5 thou­sand hectares, almost all (96%) of which belong to the most valu­able (low­land) type. Of these, about one-third are being devel­oped, and the aver­age annu­al total pro­duc­tion is approx­i­mate­ly 20 mil­lion tons. The main peat min­ing enter­pris­es are locat­ed in Cherni­hiv, Zhy­to­myr, Lviv, Sumy, and Rivne regions.

More than 80% of the peat extract­ed in Ukraine is used as fuel, and the rest is used as fer­til­iz­er. Organ­ic peat fer­til­iz­ers, pots for grow­ing seedlings, pack­aged peat, bed­ding for live­stock, and var­i­ous mix­tures of peat and soil are pro­duced. Ukraine exports peat prod­ucts as fuel in small quan­ti­ties (about 15 thou­sand tons).

In terms of car­bo­hy­drate con­tent and qual­i­ty, peat is a raw mate­r­i­al suit­able for chem­i­cal and bio­chem­i­cal pro­cess­ing. Peat hydrolysates are sim­i­lar to wood hydrolysates and can be used for the pro­duc­tion of alco­hols, phe­nols, and ani­mal feed. Hex­ose sug­ars are well-digest­ed by ani­mals and can be processed by microor­gan­isms into var­i­ous fer­mentable prod­ucts. Pen­tose sug­ars are not fer­mentable and are suit­able for cul­ti­vat­ing feed yeasts. Hydrol­y­sis prod­ucts of pen­tosans are used in the med­ical and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try for the pro­duc­tion of pro­tein prod­ucts, fats, vit­a­mins, and more.

Over­all, the explo­ration of peat bogs in our coun­try allows investors to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the role of peat extrac­tion in the coun­try’s econ­o­my, and the Insti­tute of Geol­o­gy is ready to assist you in solv­ing any issues relat­ed to sub­soil use in the field of peat devel­op­ment.

Author: Merezhko Mari­ia