Research Progress of Energy Utilization of Agricultural Waste in China: Bibliometric Analysis by Citespace

Energy utilization of agricultural waste, due to the depletion of petroleum resources and the continuous deterioration of the ecological environment, has become an increasingly important development area at present, with broad prospects. The Citespace software was used to systematically summarize the research hotspots, development, and frontiers of researches on the energy utilization of agricultural waste in China from 1999 to 2018. The results show that (1) the number of publications in this field has increased, which includes a steady development stage, a rapid development stage, and a fluctuation and decline stage. (2) Research hotspots focused on technology for energy utilization of agricultural waste, benefits analysis of energy utilization of agricultural waste, energy conversion and upgrading path of agricultural waste, and energy potential of agricultural waste. (3) Development of research hotspots go through five stages: “technology for energy utilization of straw and the disposal of livestock and poultry waste”, “exploration of energy utilization mode of agricultural waste and the disposal of by-product from energy utilization of agricultural waste”, “technology upgrading from agricultural waste to fuel ethanol and recycling of livestock and poultry waste”, “resource recycling of by-product from biogas ” and “energy utilization of livestock and slaughterhouse waste”. It has revealed the focus in this field was changing from planting waste to breeding waste, and from unprocessed waste to by-product from energy utilization. (4) Energy utilization of slaughterhouse waste and cow manure has started to be considered as the frontiers of researches.