Adding catalysts such as boric acid into biomass is a flexible method to achieve high biochar yield with low carbon emission levels. This work is directed towards investigating the effects of boric acid content on biochar yield, composition, and property through a two-step pyrolysis of rice husk. The results showed that biochar yields, compositions, and properties were associated with the amoun...

Interest in the use of biochar in agriculture has increased exponentially during the past decade. Biochar, when applied to soils is reported to enhance soil carbon sequestration and provide other soil productivity benefits such as reduction of bulk density, enhancement of water-holding capacity and nutrient retention, stabilization of soil organic matter, improvement of microbial activities, an...

This study tested whether soil-applied biochar can impact the seed germination and attachment of root parasitic weeds. Three hypotheses were evaluated: (i) biochar adsorbs host-exuded signaling molecules; (ii) biochar activates plants' innate system-wide defenses against invasion by the parasite; and (iii) biochar has a systemic influence on the amount of seed germination stimulant produced or ...

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...

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...