[Terrapreta] Farm Produced Biochar

Fri Aug 17 11:57:55 EDT 2007

Ron,

Below, I've copied a copy of my correspondence with Dr. Antonietti.   
Note that the catalyst is no problem at all.

Gerrit

Dear Gerald,

1) It works with all the biomass, but at different conditions.  
Lignified cellulose relies on "melting" (it is a plastified  
melting...) which occurs for pure cellulose beads at around 215 °C,  
it is a slight increase of conditions.
Mixed with other stuff it occurs and around 190 °C, so branches  
vanish completely in the lower range. This depends on "purity". We  
work with 2 cm pieces max. with only little loss in efficiency. It is  
like boiling vegetable soup.

2) It depends what you want. For "soil applications", you prefer a  
"hydrophilic coal", and you need not catalyst at all, only weakly  
acidic conditions.
Fe, Cu, and Ag are only needed when you do "engineering carbons",  
i.e. with much higher structural density. But iron is not a problem:  
4 % of the earth crust is made of ironoxides, and any red soul is  
full of it. Sounds maybe strange, but red soil works perfect as a  
catalyst. No cost, no removal...

3) Talking glucose, starch, and saccharides, this is easy: 70 - 80 %  
of the energy stored in the plant goes into the carbon, about 20 - 30  
% are liberated in the process. This is really a lot of heat: If you  
treat 1 kg of sugar, you get about 500 g of coal, but energy as you  
would have 200 g of the sugar! Close to a shell...

Biomass is more complex, no energy again from fats, amino acids, and  
lignin. This gives a factor which can reduce energy gain to 5 - 10 %,  
i.e. the process is essentially for free, but not more.

Thanks, indeed, for the interest.
Markus Antonietti

> Dear Dr. Markus Antonietti,
>
> As members of the Petra Terra listserve of the Hypography.com  
> Science Forum, we are excited by your research work in carbonizing  
> biomass for the purposes of building terra preta soils. We have  
> read several articles on your work with the hydrothermal  
> carbonization of plant material. After some discussion, we have a  
> few questions for clarification purposes:
>
> 1. Types of materials that can be used: you mention that your  
> process focusses on annual fast-growing plant materials. Thus,  
> should we assume that woody or lignified plant materials are too  
> dense for use in the 200 degree C steam pressure vessel? If they  
> can be used, to what extent do they have to be ground/milled?
>
> 2. The catalysts:   What is the cost of the catalysts per unit of  
> output as used in the process? In the article "Back to Black", you  
> mention catalysts of iron ions and iron oxide nanoparticles.  Is it  
> practical to recover them for re-use?
>
> 3. Net energy output:  It takes a certain amount of heat to get the  
> process started. At a certain point, an exothermic reaction takes  
> over. What is the net energy output/dry weight of biomass?
> Looking forward to your kind assistance.  I will post your answers  
> on the Petra Terra list-serve.
>
> Gerald van Koeverden

On 17-Aug-07, at 11:28 AM, Ron Larson wrote:

> Gerald, Tom etl
>
> 1.  Thanks for forwarding this new (to me) short summary article  
> you cite below.  We had a bit of discussion on this topic a few  
> months back.  For instance, see: http://bioenergylists.org/ 
> pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/2007-April/000503.html and  
> / 
> 2007-May/000861.html (and there are others)
>
> 2.  I personally find this report fascinating and credible.   
> Credible because Professor Antonietti is clearly a very  
> accomplished scientist and the Max Planck Institute is well  
> respected as well.  He has nothing to gain and a lot to lose by  
> reporting a non-starter.
>
> 3.  A good friend (Ron West - retired ChE professor) and I have  
> tried to communicate with this group - and have had some success in  
> getting additional research results.  But your forwarded article is  
> better than anything else we have found.  Unfotunately, it still  
> doesn't say what we really need.  That is - more about the catalyst  
> that is being used, and its form - and details on pressure and  
> temperature.  The article you cite doesn't say what others have  
> said on the catalyst - "iron" (and maybe "iron oxide").  Presumably  
> there are patent issues.  But we need others to be duplicating  
> their results - and I am not aware of any.
>
> 4.  The other articles we have seen have not reported on the big  
> potential for liquid fuels with these nanoparticles as a starting  
> point - so "terra preta" may be hard pressed to compete.  It was  
> good to see Professor Antonietti emphasizing the soil amendment  
> aspects of his invention.  I include several from the MP Institute  
> in this response, hoping to bring them closer to the soil testing  
> side that Tom Miles keeps emphasizing and so many on this list want  
> to participate in.
>
> 5.  This week's dialog on where to do processing is directly  
> pertinent here - as this reputedly is a simple (low cost?) process  
> that could be farm-based.  I don't see the word "solar" here, but  
> think the needed starting energy could be from that source.
>
> Again - thanks for bringing us to this topic once more.
>
> Ron
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerald Van Koeverden"  
> <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
> To: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>
> Cc: "'terra preta'" <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
> Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 7:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Farm Produced Biochar
>
>
>> Tom,
>>
>> Do you think that hydrothermal carbonization has any future??
>>
>>
>> "http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/multimedia/
>> mpResearch/2006/heft03/3_06MPR_20_25.pdf"
>>
>>
>> Gerrit
>>
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