Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Peer-reviewed

The importance of biochar quality and pyrolysis yield for soil carbon sequestration in practice

Leonor Rodrigues, Alice Budai, Lars Elsgaard, Brieuc Hardy, Sonja G. Keel, Claudio Mondini, César Plaza, Jens Leifeld

European Journal of Soil Science · 2023

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Summary

Abstract Biochar is a carbon (C)‐rich material produced from biomass by anoxic or oxygen‐limited thermal treatment known as pyrolysis. Despite substantial gaseous losses of C during pyrolysis, incorporating biochar in soil has been suggested as an effective long‐term option to sequester CO 2 for climate change mitigation, due to the intrinsic stability of biochar C. However, no universally applicable approach that combines biochar quality and pyrolysis yield into an overall metric of C sequestration efficiency has been suggested yet. To ensure safe environmental use of biochar in agricultural soils, the International Biochar Initiative and the European Biochar Certificate have developed guidelines on biochar quality. In both guidelines, the hydrogen‐to‐organic C (H/C org ) ratio is an impo

Subject
Soil carbon & organic matter
Source type
Peer-reviewed study
System type
Other
DOI
10.1111/ejss.13396
Catalogue ID
BFmommpepi-6ym03l
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