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Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture

Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture. W. Zheng B.K. Sharma K. Rajagopalan. Biochar Symposium Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) June 9, 2011. Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture. Grant #: SA 09-37 (2009-2010).

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Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture

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  1. Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture W. Zheng B.K. Sharma K. Rajagopalan Biochar Symposium Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) June 9, 2011

  2. Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment for Sustainable Agriculture Grant #: SA 09-37 (2009-2010) Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) Sustainable Agriculture Grant Program by Illinois Department of Agriculture

  3. Project Goal • The objective of this project was to examine the potential use of biochar as a soil amendment in a typical corn field in Illinois as part of a larger goal of promoting sustainable agricultural practice. To achieve this goal, three tasks were undertaken in the project: • Biochar production and characterization: Biochar production through a low-temperature slow pyrolysis technique from a variety of waste biomass. • Removal of nutrients by biochar: The sorption kinetics and mechanisms of NH4+ and PO43- removal by biochar were investigated. • Field trial to demonstrate the efficacy of biochar as a simple soil amendment as measured by crop yields and lowered fertilizer use in Illinois, which attempted to investigate if the use of biochar as a soil amendment could reduce chemical fertilizer use while at the same time maintaining or increasing crop yields.

  4. Feedstock The feedstocks used for biochar production in this study focused on three kinds of waste biomass: • Agricultural residues • corn cobs corn stover; • Yard wastes • walnut shells and wood chips; • By-products from bioenergy • defatted dried distiller grains (DDGs)

  5. Pyrolysis Syngas H2, CO, CO2 Bio-oil Pyrolysis Waste Biomass Pyrolysis is a most common thermochemicalconversion process where biomass is heated in the absence of oxygen to yield a series of bioproducts: syngas; bio-oil; and biochar. Biochar

  6. Schematic Diagram for Biochar Production in a Slow Pyrolyzer

  7. . ISTC Sustainable Biochar

  8. Effect of Selected Feedstocks and Pyrolysis Conditions on Yields of Bioproducts The yields of three bio-products produced from selected feedstocks under oxygen-limited condition for 60 min at 400 oC. *ZW-6-1, 2, and 3 refer to the feedstock pyrolyzed under 0, 2, and 5 L/min nitrogen flow.

  9. Effect of Pyrolysis Temperature on the Yields of Bioproducts

  10. Biochar Characterization on Physicochemical Properties

  11. Project Goal • The objective of this project was to examine the potential use of biochar as a soil amendment in a typical corn field in Illinois as part of a larger goal of promoting sustainable agricultural practice. To achieve this goal, three tasks were undertaken in the project: • Biochar production and characterization: Biochar production through a low-temperature slow pyrolysis technique from a variety of waste biomass. • Removal of nutrients by biochar: The sorption kinetics and mechanisms of NH4+ and PO43- removal by biochar were investigated. • Field trial to demonstrate the efficacy of biochar as a simple soil amendment as measured by crop yields and lowered fertilizer use in Illinois, which attempted to investigate if the use of biochar as a soil amendment could reduce chemical fertilizer use while at the same time maintaining or increasing crop yields.

  12. Sorption Capacities of NH4+ and PO43- on Selected Biochars and a Commercial Activated Carbon PO43- NH4+

  13. Sorption Kinetics PO43- NH4+

  14. Sorption Kinetics To investigate the controlling mechanisms of sorption processes, e.g., mass transfer and chemical reaction, the data obtained from this study were analyzed using two kinetic equations: the pseudo-first order equation and the pseudo-second order equation: where Qe and Qt are the amounts of nutrients sorbed (mmol/g) at equilibrium and at time t (h), k1 and k2 are sorption rate constants of pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order, respectively. The fit of these two models was checked by the linear plot of log (Qe-Qt) versus t and t/Qt versus t, respectively, and by comparison to the regression coefficients for each expression.

  15. Sorption Kinetics Pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order sorption rate constants of NH4+ and PO43- on two selected biochars

  16. Sorption Isotherms of NH4+ and PO43- on Selected Biochars NH4+ PO43-

  17. Sorption Isotherm

  18. Removal Mechanisms of Phosphate & Ammonium by Biochar • Precipitation process Ca2+ + PO43-+.xH20 → Ca3(PO4)2.xH20 • Surface sorption • Biochar with negatively charged surface

  19. Sorption Mechanism of Phosphate by Biochar Ca2+ + PO43-+.xH20 → Ca3(PO4)2.xH20 Ca3(PO4)2.xH20 XAD patterns of before and after PO43- adsorption by biochar

  20. Project Goal • The objective of this project was to examine the potential use of biochar as a soil amendment in a typical corn field in Illinois as part of a larger goal of promoting sustainable agricultural practice. To achieve this goal, three tasks were undertaken in the project: • Biochar production and characterization: Biochar production through a low-temperature slow pyrolysis technique from a variety of waste biomass. • Removal of nutrients by biochar: The sorption kinetics and mechanisms of NH4+ and PO43- removal by biochar were investigated. • Field trial to demonstrate the efficacy of biochar as a simple soil amendment as measured by crop yields and lowered fertilizer use in Illinois, which attempted to investigate if the use of biochar as a soil amendment could reduce the application rates of chemical fertilizer while at the same time maintaining or increasing crop yields.

  21. 2010 Biochar Field Experiment Design 90 Feet and 36 rows 60 Feet No Fertilizer Half Fertilizer Full Fertilizer No Fertilizer Half Fertilizer Full Fertilizer 10 feet x 0.66 feet used for biochar treatments

  22. Biochar Application in a Corn Field

  23. Biochar Application in Corn Field

  24. Standard corn growing practices

  25. ISTC Biochar Website http://www.istc.illinois.edu/research/biochar.cfm

  26. Biochar Application in Corn Field

  27. Selected Soil Properties Before and After Experiments

  28. Colleagues • Dr. Sharma, B.K. • John Scott • Dr. Li, X. • Christie Teausant • Nancy Holm • Brent Panno • Dr. Rajagopanlan, K. • Dr. Kulkarni, M. • Dr. Marlin, J. • Monte Wilcoxon • Joe Pickowitz • Ed Zaborski Acknowledgments This study is being supported by Illinois Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Grant Program

  29. Questions • Stay on the Stage

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