Characterization of pyrolytic products obtained from fast pyrolysis of chromated copper arsenate (CCA)- and alkaline copper quaternary compounds (ACQ)-treated wood biomasses

Inherent organic compounds in biochar–Their content, composition and potential toxic effects

“…In both biochars, the As concentration was lower than theoretically expected, since enrichment through vaporisation of organic matter should result in higher concentrations of minerals than in the feedstock (WHI biochar below detection limit). This finding shows that As was lost during pyrolysis which can be attributed to its low boiling point of 613°C, and has been observed in other studies (Bridle et al, 1990;Helsen et al, 1997;Kim et al, 2012).…”

Application of Biochar for Soil Remediation

“…Biochar inherently contains varying levels of organic pollutants such as PAHs, dioxins, or furans which are produced during pyrolysis (Garcia-Perez, 2008;Hale et al, 2012) and metals which are present in contaminated source material and concentrated after pyrolysis (Hossain et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2012;Matsuura et al, 2009). Therefore, the application of biochar to agricultural soil could potentially carry a significant risk to human health by contaminating soils used for growing crops or keeping livestock, unless appropriate measures are taken to minimize these risks.…”

“…Certain source materials can contain significant levels of indigenous heavy metals (e.g., sewage sludge or preservative-treated waste wood), and as metals with high boiling points (e.g., Pb, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Cr) are rarely transferred into bio-oil or become volatilized (except Hg, As, Cd, and Se) during pyrolysis or combustion (Van Wesenbeeck et al, 2014), metal enrichment of biochar is inevitable (Hossain et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2012;Matsuura et al, 2009). Biochars produced from waste materials are inherently variable both spatially and temporally because of the variability in the composition of the source material.…”

Toxic and nontoxic elemental enrichment in biochar at different production temperatures

“…Regarding the LPTs, it is noteworthy that the individual TE enrichment is a complex phenomenon, which is influenced by several variables: (i) initial TE levels in biomass (Kim et al, 2012), (ii) TE species, (iii) boiling point of elements and (iv) the Cl concentrations in biomass (Linak and Wendt, 1993).…”

“…Although inorganic elements incorporated in wood/biochar by spiking with metal solutions are known to increase the mass loss (%) in wood biomass/biochar relative to non-spiked wood/biochar (Kim et al, 2012;Kinata et al, 2012Kinata et al, , 2013Mayer et al, 2012). However, metal spiked wood has been criticized since the metals do not undergo complete diffusion into the wood components that result in a mass loss (Kinata et al, 2012).…”