Abstract
It is recognized that biochar undergoes changes when it is applied to soils. However, the mechanisms of biochar alterations are not fully understood yet. To this purpose, the present study is designed to investigate the transformations in the soil of two different biochars obtained from pyrolysis of fir-wood pellets. The production of the biochars differed for the dry and wet quenching procedures used to terminate the pyrolysis. Both biochars were applied to clay soil (26% sand, 6% silt, and 68% clay) placed into lysimeters. After water saturation and 15 days of equilibration, seeds of watercress (Lepidium sativum) were cultivated. After a further 7 weeks, the biochars were manually separated from the systems. A total of four samples were collected. They were analyzed for chemical–physical characteristics by using an innovative technique referred to as fast field cycling nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry. The results showed that the dry−quenching produced a material that was mainly chemically altered after application to soil compared to the biochar obtained by the wet−quenching. Indeed, the latter was both chemically and physically modified. In particular, results showed that water was better retained in the soil treated with the dry−quenched material. Consequently, we may suggest that crop productivity and environmental remediation may be modulated by applying either the dry−quenched or the wet−quenched biochar.
Highlights
Biochar (BC) is a carbonaceous porous material produced by biomass pyrolysis in oxygen-starved conditions [1]
A complete definition of such material has been given by the European Biochar Foundation (EBF), which stated that [2]: “Biochar is a porous, carbonaceous material that is produced by pyrolysis of plant biomasses and is applied in such a way that the contained carbon remains stored as a long-term C sink or replaces fossil carbon in industrial manufacturing
The present study was aimed at understanding the physicochemical alterations of biochar when it was applied to the soil
Summary
Biochar (BC) is a carbonaceous porous material produced by biomass pyrolysis in oxygen-starved conditions [1]. “Biochar is a porous, carbonaceous material that is produced by pyrolysis of plant biomasses and is applied in such a way that the contained carbon remains stored as a long-term C sink or replaces fossil carbon in industrial manufacturing. BC proved its efficiency in ameliorating soil structure [5], increasing crop productivity [6], improving rill flow resistance [7], affecting pH, enhancing ionic exchange capacity, porosity, surface area, bulk density, water-holding capacity (WHC), nutrient use efficiency, as well as increasing phosphorus and nitrogen availability to plant nutrition [8,9]. From an environmental point of view, biochar can be used for air, water and soil decontamination [10,11,12,13,14] as well as for carbon sequestration in soils [1], thereby allowing negative atmospheric carbon balance [15] and mitigating greenhouse effects [16]
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