MBST Biochar

What's so great about biochar?

• High density carbon, provides long term nutrition and housing for soil born microorganisms
• Acts as a porosity agent, aerating dense soils
• Holds 8-10 times its weight in water, reducing water demands,
• Sequesters CO2 for up to 10,000 years
• Acts as a physical filter for sediment in water and other liquids
• Adjusts the pH in soils.

Great for your garden - Great for the environment

What is Biochar?

Biochar is charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass. The resulting charcoal-like material is a form of carbon capture and storage. Charcoal is a stable solid, rich in carbon content, and thus, can be used to lock carbon in the soil. Biochar is of increasing interest because of concerns about climate change caused by emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG).

Biochar is a high-carbon, fine-grained residue which today is produced through modern pyrolysis processes. Pyrolysis is the direct thermal decomposition of biomass in the absence of oxygen to obtain an array of solid (biochar), liquid (bio-oil) and gas (syngas) products.


More about Biochar

Biochar is a dense, virtually inert carbon source providing nutrients and shelter for the millions of microbes that inhabit soil. The physical structure provides aeration for the soil and retains water. MBST Biochar sequesters CO2, nitrous oxide and methane for thousands of years thus reducing the carbon footprint of any environment where used. MBST Biochar can be used in combination with MBST Extract (biostimulants) in bioremediation programs.

Biochar production is designed as part of a comprehensive biomass management program that can include yard waste, wood waste, mixed food kitchen or commissary waste and other forms of biomass, reducing land fill space demand.

Based on the makeup of the biomass the pyrolysis operation can be energy positive and carbon negative.

Biochar can be used alone worked into the soil, mixed with potting or bedding soil or used as part of a soil less potting mix. When mixed with compost the combination makes an excellent top dressing for depleted soils.

Definition and
Historical Data
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Definition
Biochar is charcoal created by pyrolysis of biomass, and differs from charcoal only in the sense that its primary use is not for fuel, but for biosequestration or atmospheric carbon capture and storage.[1] Charcoal is a stable solid rich in carbon content, and thus, can be used to lock carbon in the soil.

Biochar is of increasing interest because of concerns about climate change caused by emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHG). Carbon dioxide capture also ties up large amounts of oxygen and requires energy for injection (as via carbon capture and storage), whereas the biochar process breaks into the carbon dioxide cycle, thus releasing oxygen as did coal formation hundreds of millions of years ago.

Historical Data
Biochar used to be produced using centuries-old techniques by smoldering biomass (i.e., covering burning biomass with soil and letting it smolder). The ancient method for producing biochar as a soil additive was the “pit” or “trench” method, which created terra preta, or dark soil.[8]

Pre-Columbian Amazonian Natives used biochar to enhance soil productivity and made it by smoldering agricultural waste[6]. European settlers called it Terra Preta de Indio.[7]

In the pre-Columbian Amazon region, the common agricultural management practice for the natives was slash and burn. Farming the rainforest until they depleted the soil and then they would slash and burn some more. When they began to slash and char instead they never had to slash anymore. They were able to produce constantly on that biochar enhanced land.

The reason contemporary scientists began to look into biochar is because they found it in the soil, 10,000 years after it was produced. They were able to trace its production back to the pre-Columbian Amazon, slash and char practice a practice that is over 10,000 years old.