Archive

PREPARATION OF BIOCHAR FROM DIFFERENT FEEDSTOCKS AND THEIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT

Mahfuja Akhter, Md. Shajib Molla, Muhammad Maniruzzaman, A.K.M Faruk-E Azam, Fatamatul Mohosina

Abstract

Biochar is widely recognized as an efficient tool for carbon sequestration, soil fertility and soil conditioner. It facilitates to retain more nutrients in field conditions. The understanding of its chemical and physical properties, which are strongly related to the type of the initial material used and pyrolysis conditions, is crucial to identify the most suitable application of biochar in soil. Biochar quality depends on feedstocks nature. For better choice of feedstock an experiment was carried out in the Agricultural Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Central Laboratory, Patuakhali Science and Technology University, Patuakhali, during August, 2014 to September, 2015. The detailed investigation was carried out to know the nutritional status in feedstocks and its biochar. Four feedstocks namely rice straw, wood (rain tree), cow dung and saw dusts were used. Biochar was pyrolyzed in a biochar stove maintaining temperature <400°C. The highest yield obtained from cow dung feedstocks and lowest from rice straw. The highest organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium were found in both feedstock and biochar of cow dung and potassium and sulphur percentage were detected from rice straw. The lowest OM, N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S were obtained from saw dust feedstock and biochar, respectively. The status of different nutrients of biochar depends on the nature of feedstocks. The overall performance indicates that biochar prepared from cow dung was the best among the four biochar.