Please cite this article in press as: Kuo, L Org. Geochem. (2008), doi:10.1016/j.org The heterogeneous nature of pyrogenic carbon, also known as black carbon (BC), still stands in the way of comprehensive determination of the total proportion of combustion derived carbon in environmental mixtures. Char and charcoal occur mostly in the low temperature region of the BC continuum and as such are c...

The existence of an anthropogenic and carbon (C) enriched dark soil in different parts of the world and especially in Amazonia (Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) or Terra Preta de Índio) proves that the predominant Ferralsols and Acrisols can be transformed into fertile soils. Charcoal formation and deposition in soils seems to be a promising option to transfer an easily decomposable biomass into ref...

In this study, the adsorptive characteristics of biochar generated from anaerobically digested garden wastes (AD-char) were investigated. Metal adsorption onto AD-chars reached equilibrium in 48 h; the adsorption capacity of Cu by AD-char was 182 μmol g, which was higher than that of Zn (35.3 μmol g) and Mn (60.7 μmol g). The metal adsorption was well described by the pseudo second-order kineti...

This study aimed to examine the effect of CO2 atmosphere during pyrolysis of solid fuel on the gasification of its char by using thermobalance. As the sample, alkali-rich lignin was prepared. The lignin sample was pyrolyzed at heating rate of 1K/s to 700C under CO2 and Ar, and these chars (ligninchar-CO2, ligninchar-Ar) are gasified in air at various temperatures, from 700C to 1140C. The differ...

Chlorine in char derived from municipal solid waste (MSW) was characterized and quantified based on its water solubility: easily water-soluble, hardly water-soluble, and non-water-soluble chlorine. For that, a four-cycle process of water-washing, heating or carbonation were carried out. In order to confirm the characteristics of non-water-soluble chlorine, additional thermal treatment and an al...

Gasification of biomass as a technological option for energy conversion is a concept that is widely discussed and taken into consideration. Due to financial incentives, i.e. increased feed – in tariffs, several small scale gasification units have been developed in Europe. In principle, the two main products of gasification are syngas, which is a gaseous fuel and char, which is a solid fraction ...

The application of bio-char (charcoal or biomass-derived black carbon (C)) to soil is proposed as a novel approach to establish a significant, long-term, sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide in terrestrial ecosystems. Apart from positive effects in both reducing emissions and increasing the sequestration of greenhouse gases, the production of bio-char and its application to soil will deliver imm...

A biomass waste, rice husk, was inspected by thermoanalytical investigation to evaluate its capability as an adsorbent medium for tar removal. The pyrolysis process has been applied to the rice husk material at different temperatures 600, 800 and 1000 °C with 20 °C/min heating rate, to investigate two topics: (1) influence of temperature on characterization of rice husk char and; (2) adsorption...

Occurrence of cannibalism and inferior competitive ability of predators compared to their prey have been suggested to promote coexistence in size-structured intraguild predation (IGP) systems. The intrinsic size-structure of fish provides the necessary prerequisites to test whether the above mechanisms are general features of species interactions in fish communities where IGP is common. We firs...

The transition from forward smoldering to flaming in polyurethane foam is observed using indepth thermocouples and ultrasound probing. The experiments are conducted with small parallelepiped samples vertically placed in an upward wind tunnel. Three of the vertical sample sides are maintained at elevated temperature and the fourth is exposed to an upward oxidizer flow and a radiant heat flux. An...