Smokeless biomass pyrolysis with application of biochar as a soil amendment could be a significant approach for carbon sequestration to control climate change for energy and environmental sustainability. However, more studies are needed in a number of research areas, including the development of clean biochar materials free of any harmful substances, before this approach could be implemented at a global scale. We recently studied the effect of biochar water-extractable substances from three different biomass-derived biochar materials on the growth of aquatic photosynthetic microorganisms including both blue-green alga (cyanobacteria Synechococcus) and eukaryotic green alga (Desmodesmus) that represent the primary photosynthetic producers of the aquatic environment. Our phytotoxicity assays showed that pinewood derived biochar water extracts inhibited the growth of both cyanobacteria and eukaryotic green algae, while peanut shell and chicken litter derived biochar water extracts did not inhibit. This paper will report our efforts to characterize biochar water extractable substances using ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry and to possibly identify the biochar toxin at molecular level. The knowledge generated from this work may have significance in understanding the potential impact of biochar water-extractable substances on environmental sustainability and in developing a new generation of biochar materials completely free of toxic components to achieve the major mission of biochar soil amendment and carbon sequestration at a global scale to control change climate towards sustainability on Earth.

Potential impact of biochar water-extractable substances on environmental sustainability

246th National Meeting (2013)

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