Investigation of extractable materials from biochar

Abstract

Biochar has been used to improve soil productivity and has been a subject of discussion since 1804. However, research and development of biochar for environmental purposes on a global scale are a recent development. Due to the increase of its uses and interest in biochar as soil amendment, there is a need to understand the intrinsic chemistry of biochar to understand how this might affect its action in the soil.

In this work two principal topics were addressed: 1) Investigation of volatile organic compounds in biochar that has been derived from various biomasses and the effect of different temperatures of pyrolysis 2) Identification of some chemical structures of biochar.

GC-MS analysis identified 60 extractable organic compounds. With respect to pyrolysis temperature, GC-MS results of Green Waste chars and Sucrose chars shows that extractable organic compounds changed their proportions with differing pyrolysis temperatures. MALDI-TOF and high resolution mass spectrometry results suggested that the characteristic ions for biochar that appear in MALDI-TOF spectra with m/z values of 301,317, 413,429 and 453 are plasticizers whereas 685/ 701 are ions, [M+Na] ⁺/ [M+K] ⁺ respectively that are intrinsic to biochar.