89 ISSN 1758-3004 10.4155/CMT.10.4 © 2010 Future Science Ltd Interest in biochar as a tool to fight climate change has led to the exploration of how biochar projects might use the stabilization of biomass carbon into carbonrich biochar, while capturing energy for mitigating climate change [1–6]. While greatly reducing our use of fossil fuels must be our primary focus, ‘safe levels’ of CO 2 in t...

Biochar may improve soil hydrology by altering soil porosity, density, hydraulic conductivity, and water-holding capacity. These properties are associated with the grain size distributions of both soil and biochar, and therefore may change as biochar weathers. Here we report how freeze-thaw (F-T) cycling impacts the grain size of pine, mesquite, miscanthus, and sewage waste biochars under two d...

Total elemental analyses of biochars presents challenges during digestion because of biochars’ high chemical recalcitrance and widely varied composition. Three biochars were chosen with contrasting properties: corn stover pyrolyzed at 300 ◦C, oak wood at 600 ◦C, and poultry manure with sawdust at 600 ◦C. Recovery of phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and zi...

Biochar has been heralded as an amendment to revitalize degraded soils, improve soil carbon sequestration, increase agronomic productivity, and enter into future carbon trading markets. However, scientific and economic technicalties may limit the ability of biochar to consistently deliver on these expectations. Past research has demonstrated that biochar is part of the black carbon continuum wi...

Biochar may affect the mineralization rate of labile organic C sources such as manures via microbial community shifts, and subsequently affect nutrient release. In order to ascertain the positive or negative priming effect of biochar on manure, dairy manure (2% by wt.) and a hardwood-based, fast pyrolysis biochar were applied (0%, 1%, 2%, and 10% by wt.) to a calcareous soil. Destructive sampli...

Biochar, as an high efficiency, environmental friendly, and low-cost adsorbent, is usually used as soil conditioner, bio-fuel, and carbon sequestration regent. Recently, biochar has attracted much attention in wastewater treatment field. There are plenty of studies about application of biochar to adsorb pollutants in wastewater, because of its low-cost preparation, high surface area, large pore...

Biochar, a green way to deal with burning and burying biomass, has attracted more attention in recent years. To fill the gap of the effects of different biochar on crop yield in Northern China, the first field experiment was conducted in farmland located in Hebei Province. Biochars derived from two kinds of feedstocks (rice straw and corn stalk) were added into an Inceptisols area with differen...

Biochar converted from agricultural residues or other carbon-rich wastes may provide new methods and materials for environmental management, particularly with respect to carbon sequestration and contaminant remediation. In this study, laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the removal of phosphate from aqueous solution by biochar derived from anaerobically digested sugar beet tail...