Transformation of Agricultural Market Waste Disposal to Biochar Soil Amendments

Abstract

In Thailand, Tarad Thai is one of the biggest and significant agricultural markets. Therefore, the problems from fresh waste disposals in this area are recognized as one of environmental significant concerns. In order to manage this problem, the conversion of those possible agricultural waste disposals to biochar soil amendments is studied. In this work, some parts of agricultural fruits waste are durian peel, mangosteen rind, corncob and banana peel. In addition, waste from fresh shrimp, shrimp shell, is also studied. Those previous waste materials are processed by viapyrolysis method to form biochar. The studies of chemical compositions, such as major and some minor nutrition, are analyzed using the Kjeldahl technique, UV-Visible spectrophotometer and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) spectrometer. The heat of combustion and some chemical properties are also studied. The biochar derived from corncob, per gram, dominates the highest value of the heat of combustion (75.151 Kcal). In addition, the study of biocharuses as soil amendments is studied via the growth of swamp morning glory. By comparing the data from typical soil and biochar soil amendments by t-test, it is found that the growing length and number of leafs shows tcal>tcrt which means that, for example, the use of the biochar soil amendments from agricultural market waste and shrimp shell as materials to grow the swamp morning glory displays the significance by comparing to typical soil.