[Terrapreta] Fossil fueled based fertilizers

[Gerald Van Koeverden]

>
Dustin Hughes experiment (quoted from link in message below) to  
combine ammonium bicarbonate and charcoal reminds me of Eprida's  
pyrolysis system.

Eprida’s process has an added twist in that it uses hydrogen and  
carbon dioxide generated by the pyrolysis process and nitrogen from  
the air to produce ammonium bicarbonate, which gets incorporated into  
the char increasing its fertilizer value. “We are selling machines  
right now,” Day says. “The capacity is one ton per hour for what we  
consider our standard unit."

How permanent is the effect that Hughes claims for the elimination/ 
sequestering of CO2 through the use of ammonium bicarcarbonate?  Does  
Eprida make the same claim?  Would this allow fertilizer  
manufacturers to claim carbon credits for producing it?  How much  
nitrogen is there in Eprida charcoal?

"Analysis of fertilizer synthesis thermodynamics gave the total  
energy of formation, product chemistry and
stoichiometry. Converting CO2 into ABC, results in a gain of 265 KJ/ 
mole in energy! Also, ABC was one of the few
fertilizers that consumed CO2 in formation (5:8, CO2 to NH4HCO3), and  
provides equivalent nitrogen content of
common fertilizers (except for AS, a specialty fertilizer), per mole  
of methane available for reaction. Given current
fertilizer use of 360 Mt/y of N equivalent on 1.4 Bha (IFIA, 1998),  
my calculations show that replacement with ABC
could bind up 1 Gt/y of CO2 in manufacture and eliminate a further  
emission of 0.27 Gt/y resulting from previous
production methods. Therefore, changing to ABC use would remove a net  
1.27 Gt of CO2 from the atmosphere! As
well, an additional 81 GJ/y of energy (the equivalent to a nuclear  
reactor) would be generated by exothermic
synthesis; -useful for other purposes, like steam turbine operation  
or space heating."

Gerrit



> On 1/11/08 1:38 PM, "Gerald Van Koeverden" <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>> Nikolaus,
>>
>> Several months ago, you described a more efficient way to utilize  
>> nitrogen by polymerizing it with formalin (see below).  Have you  
>> ever considered ways to achieve the same goal by using charcoal to  
>> absorb the nitrogen - as well as other chemical fertilizers -  
>> especially phosphorous and potash?
>>
>> If it can be shown that charcoal significantly increases the % of  
>> chemical fertilizers that are actually utilized by the plant, then  
>> this would open up a whole new window of commercial possibilities  
>> for charcoal/char as a nutrient carrier/storage.
>>
>> I enjoyed reading this little science project from a grade 10  
>> student using charcoal...."The third procedure was the creation of  
>> a fertilizer slow-release compound. Commonly, 40% of anthropogenic
>> fertilizer leaches into the atmosphere or the ocean, causing  
>> mineral salt levels and water contamination to rise
>> (Samson et al.,1999). Applying the fact that activated charcoal is  
>> a strong absorbent of organic materials (Kosson  et
>> al. 1999), I compounded each fertilizer at a ratio of 1 part  
>> charcoal to 1 part nitrogen (C:N), in the presence and
>> absence of heat, over time."    http://www.physics.uwo.ca/teamcana/ 
>> 2004/hughes_report.pdf
>>
>> Gerrit
>>
>> On 15-Sep-07, at 12:43 PM, Nikolaus Foidl wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Sean!
>>>
>>> Its Haber-Bosch not Haber Bauch. To avoid toxicity of Ammonia and  
>>> Urea you
>>> can Polymerize the stuff using 1 :1 Formalin. You get water  
>>> insoluble
>>> crystals which are then broken up by bacteria which use unease as  
>>> a enzyme.
>>> Like this you have a retarded nitrogen fertilizer with very high  
>>> efficiency
>>> and the plants get the nitrogen in little doses time after time.  
>>> As you will
>>> apply the polymer below the seeds the rhizobia are not affected  
>>> because they
>>> react only to direct water soluble nitrogen next to the seeds.The  
>>> efficiency
>>> is so high that you can lower total nitrogen by more then 50%  
>>> without
>>> affecting effective uptake quantity. Add a little Molasse and the  
>>> bacteria
>>> will love to brake up the polymer. As an additional source of  
>>> carbon you
>>> might as well add some methanol to your mixture.DCPTA enhanced  
>>> plant growth
>>> loves additional CO2.
>>> Thanks Nikolaus
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>

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