Biochar Biochar for Carbon Reduction, Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Management (BIOCHARM)

19 January 2011

Biochar for Carbon Reduction, Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Management (BIOCHARM)

The project explored the use of carbonized rice husks (CRHs) which are the by-product from small- to medium-sized (150-300 kW) gasifiers located in rice mills utilizing rice husks as the fuel as well as use of char produced from sugarcane leaf litter and maize cobs using up draft gasidier kilns. CRHs do not have a clear use at present and there is already a surplus of rice husk ash relative to requirements. Hundreds of kilograms of CRHs are produced daily.

We found that between 0.9 to 1 tonne of Co2 is removed and avoided per tonne of rice husk gasified. India is the world's second largest rice producer at 132 million tones (Mt) paddy rice in 2009/10; while Philippines produced 14 Mt and Cambodia 7 Mt. Assuming 22% of this paddy rice production is rice husk (which is typical), then the potential carbon abatement from use of CRHs - assuming that an arbitrary 1/3rd of the rice husks could be made available - is: c. 9 Mt Co2 (India), 1 Mt Co2 (Philippines) and 0.5 Mt Co2 Cambodia. If we compare CRHs to some other existing uses of rice husks, such as incorporation into irrigated rice fields, then the greenhouse gas benefit of converting to biochar becomes more significant. This is because some of the carbon in rice husks added to soil converts to methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Including such an evaluation of alternatives, increases the greenhouse saving by two or more times per tonne of husk. On an area-basis, the conversion to CRH may reduce greenhouse gas emissions up to five times compared with adding husks to irrigated fields.

Pot trials in Cambodia demonstrate that biochar can have a strongly positive effect upon yields. There was a statistically significant (95% confident level) response to increasing biochar additions for lettuce (harvestable mass, root mass, number of leaves and stem length) and for harvest and stem length in the case of cabbage. The irrigated rice field trials showed a statistically significant increase in paddy yield with 41tha-1 addition of CRHs ...

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Item Tag: BIOCHARM, Gasifiers, Project

Comments (3)

Soumen

08 April 2012 at 17:42 | #

I got a good run down on biochar at this year's PASA conference. It covered pretty much what your post did. One thing the presenter mentioned was throwing char into animal pens, where the animals would walk on it and mix it into their own manure. Brilliant break the char into small pieces without generating a huge dust cloud, control odor, and pre-charge the char with nutrients.Seems you could get some manure and just dump it on the char. After it has sit around for a while, maybe chop it with an icebreaker tool and let it sit some more, then repeat.
You won't get such fine pieces, nor instant results. But neither will you generate a dangerous cloud of dust. Barring that, I think you should keep a bucket filled with char near some discreet shrubbery.

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Andrea

08 April 2012 at 09:26 | #

It's soopky how clever some ppl are. Thanks!

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Tiana

08 April 2012 at 09:18 | #

a job well done but there some things that are not clear to m about the retot

1 there is a hole at the top of the fire box. what is it ment for bouecse is always closed in all ur picture
2 there is anothher hole at the base of the chimmny beside the fire box what is the use pls
3 what is the size of the retort as to fire box

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