Abstract
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a critical greenhouse gas and an ozone-depleting substance, with a global warming potential 298–310 times greater than that of CO2. Mitigating N2O emissions from soils has environmental benefits. Recent research indicates that biochar can serve as an “electron shuttle” to reduce N2O emissions from soils. Electron shuttle is defined as organic molecules capable of reversibly receiving and donating electrons. Thus, biochar is expected to facilitate stepwise reduction of denitrification products, reducing N2O to environmentally harmless N2. However, it remains uncertain whether biochar’s capacity to mitigate N2O can be enlarged by augmenting its function as an electron shuttle. Thus, this study prepared a biochar with enhanced electron shuttle potential by loading redox-active (Fe) onto biochar. The effectiveness of this biochar in mitigating soil N2O emissions was investigated by incorporating it into the soil. The results showed that Fe-loaded biochar significantly augmented its function as an electron shuttle and dramatically reduced soil N2O emissions by 92% compared to the original biochar. The degree of decrease in N2O emissions was strongly associated with both the electron shuttle capacity and the concentration of redox-active Fe in the biochar. Additionally, Fe-loaded biochar significantly decreased the N2O/(N2O + N2) emission ratio and increased the expression of the nosZ-II gene. Our findings suggest that redox-active Fe loading in biochar is an effective strategy to enhance its electron shuttle function. The augmented electron shuttle function of biochar can successfully facilitate N2O mitigation emission by promoting complete denitrification.
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This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (no. 2021YFD1500400), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (no. D2022503014), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 42277360), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (no. 2023YFC3707400).
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Yuan, D., Wu, P., Yuan, J. et al. Loading of redox-active metal Fe largely enhances the capacity of biochar to mitigate soil N2O emissions by promoting complete denitrification. Biol Fertil Soils (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-024-01823-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-024-01823-y