Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
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Highly Clean Biochar for Novel Applications in the Fields of Agronomy, Energy, Residential Housing

Ferruccio Pittaluga

Aside from imposing progressively tighter limits to the emissions, the issue of climate change due to increasing atmospheric carbon concentrations can be tackled by very few really practicable and effective counter-measures. Among these, the more viable appears that of removing excess carbon from the air by enhancing large-scale rapid-growth forestation and then sequestering it in the solid, carbon-rich residue of ad-hoc processes, notably, wood pyro-gasification. The paper, in its first part, presents a novel, simple, robust gasification technology that, when operated in intermittent mode, produces two highly clean products: a solid biochar and a gaseous syngas, without tars and condenses. If the modality is continuous operation (to be discussed in more detail in a companion paper), the syngas production is strongly enhanced, with just a few ashes as residue. The second part of the study addresses two main biochar utilization strategies, one in the agronomic field, highlighting its powerful effect particularly in fostering arboreal seeds’ root taking process and the other, in the housing and construction sectors. In these latter cases, the addition of biochar finely ground into lime-based plasters (with and without cement) greatly enhances, as shown in a series of parametric experimental investigations, their performance in terms of thermal insulation and humidity control.