[Terrapreta] Interesting?

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Max,

Yes, this is interesting stuff.  I think the answer about charcoal versus new cardboard from telephone book paper is like six of one, half a dozen of another.  It's recycled either way.  Ask the phone company to refer you to the phonebook printer to ask them about inks and toxins in the paper, if you like.

You say "squillions" of tons of waste.  There is lots of waste, but we could make charcoal out of ALL of it and we would still need many, many more tons of feedstock to make the amount of charcoal I think we will need (several billions of tons per year for the next 100 years or so).

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: MFH<mailto:mfh01 at bigpond.net.au> 
  To: Terra Preta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 6:46 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Interesting?


  More later on last weekend's trials, but in addition to the dry wood in the char drum I added 2 x 75mm/3" telephone books, and some tyre scraps collected from the side of the road. I'm a little surprised about the phone book result and maybe this has wider ramifications. 

   

  The photo shows about half a book in the kiln, and about half a book that fell out.

   

  The telephone books reduced to complete char. Totally. If you've ever thrown one on a BBQ or a backyard leaf burn you'll agree that the edges get singed and then it locks up. But this was a complete char. Somewhat amazingly the print on the pages was clear as crystal. And the pages were "tough", in the sense that they could be reasonably handled and didn't collapse into dust without a little effort.

   

  However, a bunch of pages scrunched by hand produced quite fine char particles. Whether these will be Biochar in the agricultural sense is not a possible answer right now. Is char, char? 

   

  So:

   

  a)       were the toxins in the original bleached and otherwise treated papers rendered 'harmless' because of the temp of the process, and

  b)       similarly the inks?

   

  And, is the conversion of this sort of waste paper product into char more beneficial than re-cycling into another cardboard carton??? Is this a better process? Squillions of tonnes of waste paper per day? 

   

  Max H

   

  PS

   

  The tyre scraps reduced to lumps of collapsible char, which isn't altogether surprising given the percentage of C in the average tyre. Again, is this a possible solution to the disposal/recycling answer problem to several squillion waste tyres/day, and if so, what are the negatives? The steel fibres and other have to be considered

   

   

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