Harvesting Heat from the Kon-Tiki

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Heat Capture

This academic year I am very excited to be working with two different engineering teams from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). One team is looking at how to optimize heat capture while carbonizing biomass. The other is prototyping the creation of roofing tiles made of biochar and concrete to be used, if all goes well, on the homes built by the 4 Walls Project in Nicaragua (more on that project later!).

Last Saturday the heat capture team came over for a few hours of hands-on biochar making using the Kon-Tiki. Every time I teach people how to make biochar, I learn something new. What was great about this group is that they came loaded with gadgets! Just listening to them problem-solving was quite an experience as they are all mechanical engineers – a far cry from my business background! What temperature could the probes handle (one did start to melt!)? What timing intervals would be best? Where should temperatures be taken and why? All good questions, and I would have to leave it to them to provide in depth answers! Fortunately lots of this data can be found on the project team’s website.

The team is now designing various possible prototypes for sterilizing water, pasteurizing liquids and drying crops. This kind of low cost, low tech heat capture can be enormously helpful in the developing world, in post-disaster scenarios, in refugee camps, etc. In addition to working locally with me on this, the team has tapped into some excellent international help from experts in Switzerland, Australia and Serbia that have already been experimenting with heat capture using Kon Tiki.

The best design will be built, tested and should debut at next year’s RIT Imagine event in May, along with the roofing tiles. Mark your calendars to come check it out!

A special note of thanks goes out to Sarah Brownell, the RIT lecturer (holding her daughter in the picture above) that is coordinating this and dozens of other senior engineering projects that have the potential to materially improve lives of those in the developing world.

Toxic Mining Waste & Biochar

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Mining Waste

One would think that the sight of a river of gold would fill one with awe. But the recent golden rivers that flowed in Colorado carried toxic ghostly remains from abandoned gold mines inspired horror, not awe. Of course people will blame the EPA for causing this horrendous problem, but this problem has been lurking beneath the surface, quite literally, for a long time. More than 3,500 abandoned mines can be found all over the world and it is not uncommon for one or more of them to spillover and cause similar damage to the surrounding eco-system. Heavy rains have often been the culprit for this kind of toxic overflow and as we know heavy rains are increasingly in the forecast what with all that increased CO2 looming in the air.

Naturally the biochar question popped into my head. Could char somehow be capable of mitigating such extreme toxic damage? Once again Master Google quickly rescued me from the completely ignorant side of the knowledge scale and led me to understand that abandoned mines are often filled with gravel and then capped off with concrete. In many cases even with these precautions, old mines get filled with water from rain. The good news is that this water can help reduce methane emissions which are released from certain types of mines (e.g. coal mines). The bad news is that all that water could at some point start leaching out via cracks in the concrete or via other routes (see my spiel on the whole biochar & sinkhole topic here)

Biochar might be a much better substance to fill an old mine as compared to the decidedly non-porous gravel! Not only would it fill up more nooks and crannies within old mines, but some chars have the ability to absorb 5 times its weight in water, so when heavy rains hit, it is less likely to cause a liquid disaster.

Filling old mines with biochar cold also potentially reduce methane emissions which are responsible for up to 10% of total CH4 emissions related to coal mining.

Of course there is the question of how to source and pay for the massive quantities of biochar that would be required to fill the mines. Perhaps pyrolizing local municipal waste could fill the void, as it were. Or perhaps fast growing, phyto-remediating plants could be planted after mines are closed (admittedly this is a challenge in and of itself given toxic soils around some old mines) and then be pyrolized with the resulting biochar used to fill the barren bowels beneath the earth.

I can’t claim to have all the answers here, but it seems to me a scenario worth investigating!

BIOCHAR + MELTED POLYSTYRENE

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Biorene

For the past several years I have been very focused on upcycling organic waste streams through carbonization but lately the question of inorganic or synthetic waste streams has begun to interest me as well. This is due in no small part to the fact that many landfills in the US, including the one closest to me, are reaching capacity.

Polystyrene (aka StyrofoamTM) is particularly problematic. Most of us are familiar with the single use products made from Styrofoam (e.g. food and beverage containers), but apparently it is also used under roads to reduce frost damage as well as being used for insulation in construction. Still, more than 2 million tons of the stuff ends up in landfills every year. Given that polystyrene is 95% air, that translates into a huge amount of landfill space, not to mention the cost of transportation to get it to its final resting spot.

While researching possible ways to upcycle this fossil fuel based material, I found shredders and compactors, but also chemical methods for converting it into something new. The most interesting one was using pyrolysis to convert polystyrene into a biodegradable plastic. Who knew when I started researching this that I would find the words pyrolysis and polystyrene in the same sentence! Not only that, but the researchers found that putting the liquid slurry that results from pyrolysis into the soil seemed to boost growth in common soil microbes. While I haven’t yet attempted to pyrolyze polystyrene, I think it will be fairly straightforward in my Kon-Tiki kiln as long as the vessel can contain the liquid, perhaps some kind of smelter-like apparatus placed in the middle of the burning embers.

In the meantime I used another chemical conversion technique which is much quicker (though undoubtedly much less healthy!): acetone. A very small amount of acetone melted the Styrofoam food container (which I guiltily accepted at a restaurant recently) in no time. It was a bit like watching the wicked witch of the west in The Wizard of Oz movie.

Since nearly everything is better with a little biochar (in my humble opinion), I added finely ground biochar to the slurry figuring that the melted polystyrene would make for an interesting binding agent. The result is the small little square shown in the picture. It’s still curing but for now it has the consistency of a hardening marshmallow. (An early lesson learned: do not leave out in the sun to dry unless you want black goo all over the place!)  Presumably a similar, but probably healthier, slurry would result from pyrolysis rather than the use of acetone, but I will leave that for chemical engineers to test.

So what could this organic and inorganic waste stream combo be used for? Given the research from Dublin showing that soil microbes actually benefit from a diet of styrene oil and knowing that biochar also benefits soil microbes, then the likelihood is high that the combination of these two would also benefit the soil. If that holds true the possibilities for products could be endless. Especially of interest would be products such as pots or urns or other items that are placed in the earth that should eventually biodegrade. Time will tell what other uses there might be for this new type of polymer (byrene or char-rene?), but it sure seems like a promising way to mitigate the mountains of Styrofoam in a very beneficial manner!

UPDATE #1: after about 36 hours, the  char-reign  is approximately 95% cured (hard).  It is super light-weight and unbreakable when I throw it around.  In another day or so it should probably be  completely cured and I can test for water and heat absorption!

UPDATE #2: Interestingly test piece #1 floats in water and doesn’t absorb water like biochar does so presumably the styrene oil has filled in all the nooks and crannies within the char.  It also insulates really well from what I can tell though my testing wasn’t of the high tech variety: held a cold pack to one side to see if the cold was able to penetrate.

Char-reign

 

A few people asked what just pure styrene would look like without the biochar so for test #2 I made one batch of only melted PS and one batch of 50/50 PS/biochar by weight (2.4 oz of each + acetone).  The PS only is still very gelatinous and has lots of bubbles present which I tried to burst through poking, taping and vibrating all to no avail.  The PS only still retains the smell of acetone much more than the PS/B version.  From day 1 to day 2 they each lost weight (4 and 3 ounces respectively) which I’m guessing means more acetone volatilized (good thing it was outside!).  Lots more curing time needed for both since I can’t easily get them out of the plastic container!

Grass & Biochar

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Grass & Biochar2

There has been a lot of buzz, so to speak, in the past year about using biochar to grow marijuana, but I’d like to address biochar usage with a far more common herbaceous ‘weed’. I am talking about grass, the kind upon which one walks and which needs constant cutting in warm weather! Many people have asked whether biochar can be made from grass, and to be honest in it is recently cut state, it is not generally a great candidate for biochar. For one reason, grass doesn’t have a whole lot of energy value and can be difficult to carbonize without converting it first into pellets. Another issue is that recently cut grass has high moisture content which readers of this blog will know makes charring a challenge.

But as I was driving along miles of NYS Thruway seeing tractors cutting endless stretches of grass, it occurred to me that some of the newer robotic gasifier technologies could be used on these long stretches to not only save money on maintenance, but to mitigate an increasing problem with winter road maintenance: salt. Sodium chloride can cause havoc to surrounding eco-systems, yet substitutes for salt are not without consequence either.

Enter the biochar solution. Self-fueled mowers may sound like future tech, but they are already prototyped and being put to excellent use spinning hay into pellets and using a portion of the pellets to fuel the mowers via gasification technology. Iron Goat Tech has a very interesting  version of this type of technology as does EcoMower. Right now the unused pellets are marketed mostly for feed or fuel. But as with biomass technology which is being tweaked to produce biochar instead of ash, these machines can be tweaked to produce biochar instead of pellets. If the char can be safely quenched and left along the mowing path, then it will be able to help prevent salt from leaching into local water bodies, all the while reducing GHG emissions by eliminating the use of fossil fuels as well as sequestering carbon in the soil.

For cities and states looking for a triple win on reducing costs, reducing GHG emissions and ameliorating harm from salting sidewalks or highways, this type of technology looks like it can do it all! No reason to stop at highways either, golf courses, parks, college campuses even residential homeowners could benefit from this exciting new technology!

Landscaping & Biochar

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Landscaping & biochar2I’ve been asked more than once recently how landscapers could incorporate the use of biochar into their businesses. Not being in the biz myself, I decided to do some investigating to understand a bit more about the specific services landscapers provide to better understand how to answer this question. Obviously services will vary significantly by region, but in my neck of the woods services generally seem to fall in to a few basic categories: lawn care, tree care and some are now offering environmental services such as rain & roof gardens. (Hardscaping is also a big service area, but I’ll leave that one out for now.) Below are some ideas on how biochar might be used in various landscaping services:

On the lawn care front there are at least two services where biochar could be very useful. Establishing new lawns is required for newly built homes and office buildings. Unfortunately many times builders scrape away the topsoil to facilitate building and then sell it off, leaving poor quality subsoil which contributes to poor lawns and significant runoff in some places. Adding biochar prior to establishing new lawns will provide much needed carbon, improve water management and reduce leaching and erosion.

Aeration services are provided for already established lawns that suffer from compaction caused by heavy lawn equipment, heavy rainfall, foot traffic, etc. Compaction reduces the soil’s ability to absorb water and oxygen resulting in thatch, rapid drying, rain run-off and other issues. Typically this is dealt with by pulling out soil plugs to allow for improved air and water penetration. Instead of leaving these new holes empty, filling them with highly porous biochar would likely prevent holes from caving in while still allowing for air and water to enter.

Tree care and biochar is a great closed loop opportunity. Many times when trees are pruned or removed the debris is chipped and transported offsite, incurring increased cost for the homeowner and sometimes logistical headaches for the landscaper if there are no local places that will accept chips. Thus charring leftover biomass on-site could not only make debris management cheaper, but could provide high quality biochar for various uses for the homeowner or the landscaper. Planting trees with biochar has been shown in various trials to improve survival rates as well as to improve growth rates.

Environmental services such as rain gardens and bioswales seem to be increasingly popular, at least in the Finger Lakes region. No doubt this is in an attempt to better manage the increasing number of heavy precipitation events and reduce costly flooding impacts. In contrast to using sand in rain gardens and bioswales, biochar makes an excellent light weight, highly porous filtration medium.

Overall I’d have to say biochar production and use within the landscaping industry makes for a great closed loop scenario! One model that has been popping up in different locations is for landscapers to purchase portable kilns such as the Kon-Tiki, and either rent these to homeowners for a few days so they can char on their own, or to provide charring services in lieu of chipping & shipping debris. (Note: it is recommended to wait a few days after pruning to lower the moisture content.)

Acid Rain & Biochar

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Acid Rain & Biochar

Acid rain has been on my mind of late for a few reasons. Firstly, the recent Supreme Court case ruling against regulating power plants means that power belchers may continue to pollute our air ad nauseum -and I mean that quite literally – for the foreseeable future. Secondly the 9th Annual Conference on Acid Rain will be held right in my backyard this fall – probably because my region is one of the areas heavily impacted by acid rain.

In all fairness many of us must shoulder some of the blame for this pollution as consumers of electricity and drivers of gas powered vehicles. Much as we all love these industrial age conveniences, the negative environmental consequences are numerous and nefarious. However, with a concerted effort, I do believe biochar could play a substantial role in counteracting at least some of these negative impacts. Let me explain…

While pure water has a neutral pH (i.e. 7), normal rain water is actually mildly acidic (~pH 5.6). Acid rain, on the other hand, is rain water that has a very low pH, typically around 4.0 or below. The acidity and other noxious chemicals found in acid rain (e.g. mercury, NOX, SO2, etc.) are largely from smoke stakes from coal burning power plants or tail pipes. Unsurprisingly this has an enormous impact on soils, water bodies, flora and fauna (including human health) and even on the lifespan of limestone buildings! Allow me to unpack this a little bit to understand how biochar might be of help.

Soils exposed to acid rain can become more acidic (although this is not true for alkaline soils). Acid rain can damage fine root hairs, impact nutrient availability, mobilize toxins such as copper and lead, and release aluminum which is not only toxic to plants, but when leached into local water bodies has been known to kill fish by the boatload. Trees, especially those up in the mountains, and especially pine trees that have densely packed year-round foliage, suffer by means of slower growth, reduced resistance to injury, pests and pathogens as well as by early death.

Biochar can help the soils in a number of ways. As it is normally alkaline, it can help reduce soil acidification. It can also help prevent mobilization of toxins and nutrient leaching. Various research papers have shown that biochar can be used to neutralize the negative impact of aluminum in soils as well. But it also might be able to help rebuild forests already damaged as an increasing number of studies on perennial crops have shown that biochar in soils can help improve early growth and survivability of trees.

Dead and dying lakes are another major consequence of acid rain and the number of them has been rising since the 1980s. When the pH of a lake, river or stream changes too much, aquatic animals can no longer survive causing huge die-offs (this is also caused by the aluminum leaching). While there are ways to reverse this by what is called ‘lake liming’, it is not without considerable cost. As an example, one small pond in New York recently received 80 tons of lime delivered via 120 helicopter trips to try  to temporarily counter balance the effects of acid rain (more info here) and keep the stocked pond alive.

I’m thinking that a better solution would be to have a few dozen Kon-Tiki kilns around impacted ponds and lakes and have rangers and campers char through some of the forest prunings which will not only reduce fire risks but the biochar could be used instead of lime to neutralize the water’s (or the soil’s) pH. Think of all the money saved, not to mention fossil fuel and labor getting that lime up there!

The lake I grew up on hosts an annual “Ring of Fire” event around Labor Day where cottagers light flairs (used to be candles floating on paper plates).  Imagine converting such an event into a much more sustainable and earth enhancing all day event were neighbors scavenge forest debris, cook on kilns for their family and friends and then ‘sacrifice’ the biochar to the water and/or soil to help heal the damage.

No doubt lots more research is needed in this area, but it could be a very interesting way of rebalancing not only carbon, but reversing environmental damage caused by the use of fossil fuels.

Biocharlie

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Biocharlie

A new biochar friend of mine from Western NY has just started manufacturing a nifty little retort for making biochar called the ‘Biocharlie’. I’ve used it a few times now and I have to say it is the easiest way to make biochar ever! Not only is it easy, but it allows you to char materials that can be difficult to char in other kilns or TLUDs. For my first attempt I tried charring sycamore seed pods that I collected from last fall. I only had about a gallon of them and they are fairly delicate so the Biocharlie was the perfect piece of equipment for this type of biomass.

It’s a little too warm these days for an indoor fire so I tried it out in my new Kon-Tiki kiln (see lower left picture). After creating a decent bed of burning embers, I tossed Biocharlie into the fire. More fuel was added to the fire so that eventually Biocharlie was barely visible. The retort has tiny little holes which allow gases to escape (without these it might explode!). What was interesting is that each hole had tiny little flames jumping out of them. I was pretty convinced my pods were going up in flames inside. Happily I was completely wrong. After quenching the fire and letting the water cool down, I opened up the canister and had perfectly charred seed pods (top right picture). I can’t wait to try out a few more things that aren’t that easy to char in other kilns: turning bones into bone char (good for filtration), turning eggshells into high calcium biochar (animal feed additive), and turning coffee grounds into a nutrient-loaded char for use in soils.

In addition to being able to char delicate feedstock, this could be a great little retort for making ‘designer char’ as well. You can coat your feedstock with various different materials and bake them into the biochar. There is tons of research going on around the world combining biochar with all sorts of different minerals, metals and more.

For those of you that want to dip your toes into the biochar world in the most painless way possible, I highly recommend getting one of these for your fireplace, campfire or Kon-Tiki kiln!

Storm water management and biochar

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LeCharsette

Rain, rain, go away! I hate to say this too loudly especially since so many areas are suffering from drought, but we are under water siege in the Finger Lakes these days. One of the worst climate change impacts for Upstate NY relates to precipitation. We are predicted to have increasingly erratic rain events and when we do get them they will be stronger than in the past. This year’s precipitation would seem to be the new normal and most are woefully unprepared!

Flooding, runoff, erosion have all been rampant for the past 2 years. Farmers cannot get in the fields for planting or cutting hay. Lakes polluted with runoff are spilling over. Debris is falling and floating in places which cause danger and damage. It’s a mess! But enough about the problem, what about the biochar solution you may be asking right about now. Not to worry, there are many potential solutions which could enlist the help of biochar (made from some of this downed debris where possible!).

First off, while recently talking to my Dad about his particular rain pain which is all about barn flooding, I suggested a simple runoff diversion mechanism to provide a more favorable path for water and the sludge it brings with it (i.e. anywhere but through the barn!). He was keen to try something but sand bags are heavy and diversion tubes will need to be moved out of the way when tractors need to come and go out of the barn. But who needs heavy sand when we’ve got lightweight biochar? And so ‘Le Charsette’ (chausette in French means ‘sock’) was born. Sewn from simple weed barrier fabric and filled with biochar, this sock can be placed in front of the barn (or home, or basement, or storm drain, etc.) when flooding is in the forecast. [HINT – or should I say lesson learned: if you are making one, a relatively uniform biochar particle size is recommended. If you’ve charred sticks and haven’t crushed them, they will poke at the fabric.] The perfect Father’s Day gift if your Dad happens to be a farmer or live in a deluge-prone zone!

Jumping off of the simple Charsette idea to divert rainwater, these could be used on farms that border rivers, streams & lakes to reduce erosion and nutrient leaching. Such erosion control tubes or wattles already exist of course, but filling them with biochar may be a more sustainable solution than those filled with straw or other materials. They are likely to last longer and smell less. It is also likely that the char will eventually become charged with these nutrients which would otherwise end up in water bodies.  The charged biochar could then be used as a fertilizer and the socks could be refilled with fresh biochar – just like changing your batteries in the fire alarm!

Varying the size of these, they could be used to reduce erosion and fortify terraced farmland. The added benefit is that if the bags start to disintegrate it isn’t really a big deal. The biochar, unlike sand, is likely to improve the land upon which it sets. And landlocked locales don’t exactly have easy access to sand, so biochar may make these a much more viable alternative.

This whole sandbag replacement idea helped me stumble upon sandbag house construction. Constructing homes using biochar filled bags sprayed over with biochar plaster, might just be something I’ll have to try (or at least blog about) in the future!

Managing the upcoming biochar tsunami

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Hype cycle

In the last few weeks no fewer than five new biochar projects/companies have come to my attention that have the capability, or are in fact are already producing thousands, or in a few cases, tens of thousands of tons of biochar annually. Though biochar is still in the introduction phase of its life cycle in the US, things are definitely beginning to change.

Product Life Cycle

From a carbon sequestration perspective, this seems like an exciting and very desirable development given the current imbalance of carbon in the atmosphere. From a consumer perspective, this should be great news as increased supply generally translates in to decreased prices. But from a market readiness perspective, I wonder if the collective we are ready to absorb (or perhaps I should say adsorb! – pardon the biochar geek humor) the barrage of biochar that may soon be upon us?

The level of market awareness about the benefits of biochar is still very, very low. The level of understanding about the nuances of different types of biochars and their related characteristics and impacts is a mere fraction of that already small number. Not only do most potential users (and in some cases I would argue biochar sales reps) not understand these nuances, but when I read some of the marketing materials for different biochars, it seems that every single biochar out there is not only the best of the best, but they are all capable of providing any and all benefits ever associated with biochar in a particular crop trials. To those that have been entrenched in the world of biochar for even a few years, this type of hype makes one more than a little nervous for the long term prospects of a biochar market. When you look at where we are in the biochar hype cycle and overlay that with the biochar product life cycle, you can see the potential for hype to throw biochar off the typical product life cycle if biochar claims are not shown to reflect reality.

I want to see biochar succeed just as much as anyone, probably more, but for a sustainable market to develop, biochar should be treated as the complex material that it is. Like its far more glamorous carbon cousin the diamond, which is evaluated using various criteria (e.g. cut, color, clarity, and carat), each different type of biochar should similarly be understood and valued for its specific characteristics. Similar to ‘marrying’ the right diamond to the right woman, the most desired qualities can vary depending on the particular end us for the biochar. Meaning that the best biochar to use for improving drought tolerance may not be the same as the biochar you want to use to filter water or to remediate a brownfield, and so on.

I am a big believer in the notion that for most types of biochars (the exception is chars made from toxic substances!), there is a best end use. As an example those with high nutrients (e.g. poultry litter biochar) would be great for soil amendments; chars made from feedstock with intricate lattice structures, may be more suited to energy storage than others, etc.. Matching chars to their best end use is something that is still very much in its infancy, but it is definitely an exciting area of research!

Biochar & evaporative cooling

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Char-cool

With all these heat waves happening around the world I got to wondering if there is any possible way that biochar might be able to help people chill out (beyond the whole climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration aspect of course!). It seemed unlikely really. I mean char is black so it loves to absorb heat. When you are making it, you are definitely adding a LOT of heat to your surroundings.

But after I wrote a little something about using biochar in Zeer Pots for the Biochar Journal, I got to thinking about related possibilities. Cooling food with the help of biochar/charcoal has been demonstrated most notably in developing world countries. I especially like the charcoal refrigeration example in Kenya (middle picture above and article here). The author describes how charcoal works in this type of evaporative cooling technology:

   “Charcoal is an ideal material for refrigeration because it has pores, which absorb and  store water. This reduces heat from outside. And because wet charcoal does not allow easy passage of heat, it results in low temperatures inside the cubicle.”

There are many fine examples of this concept in other countries as well. So why have we not explored the use of this concept to cool humans and not just food? With the increasing number of heat waves, human suffering around the world is growing. Would not having a ‘char-conditioned’ house that could potentially be as much as 15F degrees cooler provide a bit of relief?

Evaporative cooling walls are not new in the developed world, but from what I can see the cooling pads used in these systems are generally made from cellulosic materials which I am guessing have a much more limited lifespan than something like charcoal would. Using biochar instead of cellulose could also provide additional benefits beyond longevity. It can filter water such that what comes out is better than what goes in, perhaps allowing for gray water to be used as the wetting material.  If there is water trickling down at the base of the walls, this could potentially be used for agriculture or possibly human consumption (though I’d caution using it for drinking!).

This concept need not be limited to humans either. Imagine using charcoal walls in barns to keep them cooler and less smelly!  The charcoal could even be made from animal waste and maybe, just maybe, the liquid used for cooling could be animal urine which could charge the biochar all the while filtering the urine. Or they could be used as aquaponics or greenhouse walls, made from charred vegetable waste and fish effluent could be the liquid used to moisten and charge the charcoal.

Endless cool possibilities…