{"id":46984,"date":"2017-11-06T06:42:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T05:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rss.nova-institut.net\/public.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azocleantech.com%2Fnews.aspx%3FnewsID%3D24308"},"modified":"2017-10-30T10:27:15","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T09:27:15","slug":"carbon-coating-gives-biochar-its-garden-greening-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/carbon-coating-gives-biochar-its-garden-greening-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Carbon coating gives biochar its garden-greening power"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than 100 years, biochar, a carbon-rich, charcoal-like substance made from oxygen-deprived plant or other organic matter, has both delighted and puzzled scientists. As a soil additive, biochar can store carbon and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it can slow-release nutrients to act as a non-toxic fertilizer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the precise chemistry by which biochar stores nutrients and promotes plant growth has remained a mystery, so its commercial potential has been severely limited.<\/p>\n

\"Research
Research scientist Robert Young with the mass spectrometer at Florida State University\u2019s MagLab. This instrument helped the CSU scientists identify elemental signatures in a biochar carbon coating.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, an international team of researchers, with key contributions by Colorado State University experts, has illuminated unprecedented detail and mechanistic understanding of biochar\u2019s seemingly miraculous properties. The Nature Communications study, led by Germany\u2019s University of Tuebingen and published Oct. 20, demonstrated how composting of biochar creates a very thin organic coating that significantly improves the biochar\u2019s fertilizing capabilities. A combination of advanced analytical techniques confirmed that the coating strengthens the biochar\u2019s interactions with water and its ability to store soil nitrates and other nutrients.<\/p>\n

This improved understanding of biochar\u2019s properties could trigger more widespread commercialization of biochar fertilizers. Such a change could reduce global dependence on inorganic nitrogen fertilizers that have served as modern food-production workhorses for more than a century.<\/p>\n

CSU contribution<\/h3>\n

The international collaboration included CSU\u2019s Thomas Borch, professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences with joint appointments in chemistry and civil and environmental engineering, and research scientist Robert Young. The CSU team contributed high-resolution mass spectrometry performed at Florida State University\u2019s National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Their data helped to confirm the composition of the biochar\u2019s nanoscale carbon coating.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo characterize a super-thin carbon coating on a carbon substrate is nearly impossible,\u201d Borch said. \u201cOur international team used many different advanced techniques to perform the analyses. Robert Young led our group\u2019s contribution of ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry to investigate the coating and probe its elemental makeup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Composted biochar<\/h3>\n

The study was led by Andreas Kappler, of the Center for Applied Geoscience at the University of Tuebingen, and geo-ecologist Nikolas Hagemann. The authors set out to investigate biochar before and after composting with mixed manure. Using a combination of microscopic and spectroscopic analyses, the researchers found that dissolved organic substances played a key role in the composting of biochar and created the thin organic coating.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis organic coating makes the difference between fresh and composted biochar,\u201d Kappler said. \u201cThe coating improves the biochar\u2019s properties of storing nutrients and forming further organic soil substances.\u201d Hagemann added that the coating also developed when untreated biochar was introduced into the soil \u2013 only much more slowly. Composting experiments were carried out on a small commercial scale using infrastructure and expertise of the Ithaka Institute in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Why biochar?<\/h3>\n

Excessive use of mineral nitrogen fertilizers or liquid manure in agriculture has serious impacts on the environment. Such fertilizers cause the emission of nitrous oxide and result in nitrates leaching into the groundwater. As an eco-friendly alternative, scientists have suggested adding biochar as a nutrient carrier into the soil. But use of biochar on a large scale has not been economically viable because so little was known about exactly how it stores and releases nitrates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn agricultural crop production, higher yields usually only occur when biochar is applied together with nutrients from non-charred biomass such as liquid manure,\u201d Hagemann said. \u201cUsing biochar without adding nutrients or with pure mineral nutrients has proved to be far less successful in many experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research was supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Berlin) in the form of a doctorate scholarship for Nikolas Hagemann, the EU COST Initiative TD1104 and the Ithaka Institute (Switzerland).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than 100 years, biochar, a carbon-rich, charcoal-like substance made from oxygen-deprived plant or other organic matter, has both delighted and puzzled scientists. As a soil additive, biochar can store carbon and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it can slow-release nutrients to act as a non-toxic fertilizer. But the precise chemistry by which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12738],"supplier":[3135,13898,4237],"class_list":["post-46984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biochar","supplier-colorado-state-university","supplier-florida-state-university","supplier-universitaet-tuebingen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46984"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=46984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}