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Biochars prepared from biogas residues: temperature is a crucial factor that determines their physicochemical properties

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Abstract 

The quantity of biogas residues is continually increasing and causing a great threat to the environmental protection and sustainable development of bio-natural gas engineering. Thus, four biogas residues (sewage sludge, SR; spent mushroom compost, MR; wheat straw, STR; distillers’ grains, DL) were collected to prepare biochars at different temperatures (300 °C, 500 °C, and 700 °C) in this study. The functional groups, crystal structure, and physical and chemical properties of biochars were characterized to evaluate the suitability of preparing biochar from different biogas residues. The results showed that the biochar yield ranged from 45.13 to 66.42% at 300 °C, 34.13 to 51.50% at 500 °C, and 30.33% to 47.06% at 700 °C. The carbon (C) content in STR and DL biochar increased under higher temperatures. Further, with increasing temperature, the P and K contents, pH, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area (SBET), and total pore volume (TPV) increased. The functional groups of the STR biochar decreased significantly, and the aromatic compounds were decomposed. The biochar (except SR biochar) structures were more stable under high temperature. The morphological structure of DL biochar at 700 °C was the most stable. The SBET of four biochars at 700 °C increased 11.98- to 33.43-fold compared with that at 300 °C. And the TPV of four biochars at 700 °C increased 2.22 to 10.25 times that at 300 °C. STRB700 has higher SBET, because C–H bond stretching in aliphatic formation and C = C stretching in hemicelluloses in STRB relatively decomposed under high temperature (300 °C and 500 °C), especially under 700 °C. The high temperature is favourable to the formation of smaller microporous.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31901195), the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019BD062, ZR2021QD036), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ASTIP-TRIC-ZD01).

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  1. Ping Cong and Shuhui Song contributed equally to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Tobacco Biology and Processing, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tobacco Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, China

    Ping Cong, Wenjing Song, Jianxin Dong & Xuebo Zheng

  2. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, South Subtropical Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Zhanjiang, 524000, China

    Shuhui Song

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  1. Ping Cong
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Contributions

Ping Cong, conceptualization, formal analysis, and investigation; Shuhui Song, methodology and roles/writing—original draft; Wenjing Song, supervision and writing—review and editing; Jianxin Dong, resources and supervision; Xuebo Zheng, conceptualization, funding, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Xuebo Zheng.

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Cong, P., Song, S., Song, W. et al. Biochars prepared from biogas residues: temperature is a crucial factor that determines their physicochemical properties. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-03229-y

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