Biomass co-pyrolysis with calcium dihydrogen phosphate improving carbon fixation of biochar

Abstract: Turning biomass wastes into biochar under low temperature and limited oxygen conditions has recently proven as a promising approach for long term carbon sequestration. In order to reveal the effects of mineral addition which is a pretreatment of biochar production on carbon retention and stability of biochar and provide an creative idea for further improvement of carbon sequestration potential by turning biomass into biochar. Calcium dihydrogen phosphate using as a typical mineral was added to sawdust and dairy manure feedstock at the ratio of 20% for biochar formation through co-pyrolysis treatment under lab condition, a typical slow pyrolysis process, heated in a Muffle Furnace at a speed of approximately 20 ℃/min under limited oxygen and held at 200 to 500 ℃ with every other 100 ℃ for 1 h. Moreover, two reliable methods were applied to test biochar stability: One was a simulated long-term stability method using chemical oxidation treatment to assess the labile fraction of C in biochar samples after hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) oxidation, this method was to determine the chemical stability of biochar; The other was simulated mineralization experiment to test the biochar's microbe-resistance stability, this method was to evaluate the biological stability of biochar in terms of microbial mineralization rate under simulated soil microbial conditions in a lab-scale experiment. The carbon retention was defined as the proportion of the original carbon, which was from plant photosynthesis by sequestrating the CO2 from atmosphere in feedstock, retained in the biochar after the pyrolysis. Compared with the original biochar, modified biochar produced with calcium dihydrogen phosphate addition to sawdust and dairy manure were increased by 31.3% and 26.1%, respectively; With H2O2 oxidation, the carbon loss of modified biochar produced with calcium dihydrogen phosphate addition to sawdust was reduced by 93.1%, compared with its unmodified biochar. However, the carbon loss of the dairy manure modified biochar was increased nearly 9 times, compared with the unmodified biochar. The cumulative CO2 emission during 60-d aerobic incubation were 1.77 mg/g for sawdust modified biochar and 5.00 mg/g for dairy manure modified biochar, which were decreased by 90.3% and 72.8% compared with their unmodified biochar, respectively. Our results indicated that calcium dihydrogen phosphate was effective in increasing carbon retention and strengthening biochar stabilization, which provided a novel idea for exploring and producing the designated biochar with high carbon sequestration capacity and stability.