Soybean Fertilized by P-Phases from Bagasse-Based Materials: P-Extraction Procedures, Diffusive Gradients in Thin Films (DGT), and X-ray Diffraction Analysis (XRD)

Christian Vogel,Vitalij Dombinov,Hannes Herzel,Joachim Werner Zang,Felix Müller,Christian Adam,Silvia Diane Schrey,Nicolai David Jablonowski,Sabine Willbold,Gabriel Vettorazzi Levandowski,Warde Antonieta Da Fonseca-Zang,Martin Meiller

doi:10.3390/agronomy10060895

Abstract

The Brazilian sugarcane industry produced around 173 million tons (Mt) of bagasse in 2018. Bagasse is a by-product of juice extraction for ethanol and sugar production and is combusted in order to generate power, producing up to 10 Mt of ash per year. This ash contains various concentrations of plant nutrients, which allow the ash to be used as a crop fertilizer. However, the concentration and extractability of phosphorus (P), an essential plant nutrient, are low in bagasse ash. To increase the P content, we co-gasified and co-combusted bagasse with P-rich chicken manure. The resulting ash was thermochemically post-treated with alkali additives (Na2SO4 and K2SO4) to increase the availability of P to plants. We aimed to: (i) investigate the effect of thermochemical post-treatment of co-gasification residue and co-combustion ash on P availability to soybeans, (ii) explore the potential of chemical extraction methods (citric acid, neutral ammonium citrate, formic acid, and Mehlich-I) and diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) to predict the availability of P to soybeans, and (iii) identify the responsible P-phases using X-ray diffraction. We evaluated P availability to soybeans growing in Brazilian Oxisol soil in two independent greenhouse pot experiments. The positive effect of thermochemical treatment on P availability from gasification residue was confirmed through the observation of increased P uptake and biomass in soybean plants. These findings were confirmed by chemical extraction methods and DGT. The gasification residue contained whitlockite as its main P-bearing phase. Thermochemical post-treatment converted whitlockite into highly soluble CaNaPO4. In contrast, co-combustion ash already contained highly soluble Ca(Na,K)PO4 as its main P-bearing phase, making thermochemical post-treatment unnecessary for increasing P availability. In conclusion, increased extractability and availability of P for soybeans were closely connected to the formation of calcium alkali phosphate. Our findings indicate that this combined methodology allows for the prediction of P-fertilization effects of ash.

Highlights

In 2018, the Brazilian sugarcane industry produced around 173 million tons (Mt) of bagasse.Bagasse, the fibrous plant material remaining after sugarcane juice extraction [1], is usually directly combusted to generate the energy required in sugar mills [2], with any excess energy supplied to the local power grid [2,3]
In the case of Gasification Residue (GR)-based fertilizers, the decrease of element mass fractions by thermochemical treatment is less pronounced, as the loss on ignition (LOI) of GR decreases from 36 wt.% to 8 wt.%
Even though P from CaNaPO4 was reported to be completely extractable in citric acid (CA) [60], neutral ammonium citrate (NAC) [23] and formic acid (FA) [19], we found that extractable P ranged from 80 to 90% (Figure 2) due to incomplete transformation of whitlockite into CaNaPO4 in GR with Na2 SO4 (GR+Na) and GR+Na/K (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

In 2018, the Brazilian sugarcane industry produced around 173 million tons (Mt) of bagasse. The fibrous plant material remaining after sugarcane juice extraction [1], is usually directly combusted to generate the energy required in sugar mills [2], with any excess energy supplied to the local power grid [2,3]. Bagasse combustion produces up to 10 Mt of ash annually (calculation based on [1,2,4]). Plant availability of K from biomass ash was reported to be comparable to that from potassium chloride (KCl) [9,10], but highly dependent on soil properties, including clay content and acidity [9].

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