[Terrapreta] Charcoal properties II

[Michael J. Antal, Jr.]

Dear friends: many thanks for your kind comments and questions on my
previous posting.  In what follows I will attempt to briefly respond to the
many messages I received.

Several years ago Morten Gronli and I completed a review of the field of
charcoal production (including its properties).  I believe this review
references every technical paper written on charcoal, including the seminal
work of Violette in 1851 (Violette took the position held earlier Lavoisier
in France).  I am happy to send this review, and related work to anyone who
may be interested.  I cannot post these papers on a website because it would
violate the ACS copyright.

I have sent a pdf copy of the ASTM test procedure that we employ for
proximate analysis to Tom Miles for posting on the terra preta website.  We
have conducted a round robin study of proximate analysis with colleagues in
the Norwegian colleagues ferosillicon industry.  The results are in one of
my papers that I can send to you.

In addition to the laboratories that Tom Miles mentioned in an earlier
posting, I can also recommend the Huffman Laboratories
(www.huffmanlabs.com).  To many of us in the fuel science community, the
Huffman Laboratories is the gold standard for analyses.

When the seminal work on terra preta by Bruno Glaser and Johannes Lehmann
first appeared, I recognized the need for well-characterized charcoal
materials.  I submitted a proposal to the USDA IFAFS call in 2001 that would
have enabled me to provide well characterized samples of charcoal to terra
preta researchers.  The proposal received good reviews but was not funded.
I rewrote the proposal and submitted it to the the NRI call in 2001.  It was
not funded.  I visited the USDA program officers in Washington DC (not a
small trip from Honolulu) and sought their advice.  On the basis of their
advice I rewrote the proposal (again) and submitted it to the NRI 2004
competition.  It was not funded.  By then Kingsford had indicated a desire
to work with me.  I prepared a proposal with Kingsford that I planned to
submit to the NSF.  When I began the submission process, NSF informed me
that there was no Division within the Foundation that could even consider
such a proposal.  This factual history explains why I am unable to provide
well characterized charcoal samples to you.

Since well-characterized charcoal samples are not easily available, I
suggest that you document everything you know (e.g. its source, the
feedstock, its history, etc.) about the sample you are testing, and that you
set aside a small sub-sample of the charcoal (ca. 100 g or more) for later
testing in the event that you find the charcoal to be particularly
beneficial (or detrimental) to plant growth.  Without well-characterized
charcoal samples, progress can still be made if the charcoals that prove to
be particularly beneficial (or detrimental) can be identified and tested
after the fact.

My colleague Prof. Uehara and I have just submitted a new proposal to NSF on
this subject.  If it is funded, I should be able to be of greater help in
the future.

Several of you have requested further information on the findings of
Professor Uehara and his co-workers.  I know that one of his students
(Amanda McClellan) plans to make a public presentation of her findings (with
Prof. Uehara and Dr. Deenik) next month here at UH.  For those of you who
cannot attend, perhaps Prof. Uehara will arrange for a posting of Ms.
McClellan's presentation on the CTAHR website.  I suggest that you contact
him directly if you are interested.

Best wishes, Michael.

Michael J. Antal, Jr.
Coral Industries Distinguished Professor of Renewable Energy Resources
Hawaii Natural Energy Institute
School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST)
1680 East-West Rd., POST 109
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822

Phone: 808/956-7267
Fax: 808/956-2336
http://www.hnei.hawaii.edu