Short Description of the Technology

Modern agriculture practices involve a sharp increase in production of organic residues as byproduct; especially from animal farming. Management of this waste is utmost important as huge amounts of ammonia and greenhouse gases are liberated to environment, which cause serious environmental concerns and also result in loss of nutrients from final composts produced from organic residues. The present innovation involved testing of forest debris biosolids based biochar and further modifications were performed to fabricate this biochar into smallest particle size possible; named NANOBIOCHAR with 240nm of size and homogeneous particle distribution index. Nano-biochar showed potential reduction in ammonia emission during composting and storage of solid fraction (organic residues from a cow farm) while higher nutrients availability in final composts. Additionally; the toxicity evaluation of nano biochar was performed on stream-dwelling microbial communities in leaf-litter decomposition; no environmental toxicity was recorded in nano biochar application. More pronouncedly, nano biochar showed more potential efficiency than biochar in very low amount of application in comparison to raw biochar in organic residues management.

Innovative Features

Advancement in nanotechnology brought the transformation of this nature-based material into much smaller particle size in nano-scale for higher adsorption and thermal stability properties by superior carbon functional groups, higher negative zeta potential and reduced hydrodynamic radius. The nano-scale biochar transformation facilitates a many-fold increase in surface area and structural changes in porosity. This, combined with the hydrophobic nature of the material improves the overall performance in ammonia capture. During the composting process of solid fraction with nano-biochar addition this results in decreased ammonia emission. Several different top down and bottom-up approaches have been reported to synthesize biochar nanoparticles (BC-NPs); however, our approach focused on sonication methods which is likely to be more effective to transform the BC into BC-NPs in short time span and with uniform particle distribution.

The newly synthesized nano-biochar potentially improved the beneficial microbial community to improve the decomposition while reducing the ammonia emissions and thus upgraded the nutrients availability and quality of final composts.

Type of Contribution

This advance nano biochar showed higher potential to reduce ammonia emission, nutrients retentions and improved the compost quality as well as improved the decomposition process naturally. The material showed no toxic effects; and showed a positive corelation towards improved natural biota. The nano-biochar also provided an insight that it can be used in very small amounts in comparison to raw biochar. The present material can be a new sustainable strategy for sustainable management of organic matter residues management.

Benefits for farmers, the industry, and the environment

The results of our study are expected to contribute in elucidating the impacts of reduced ammonia emissions, higher nutrients availability, improved natural microbial decomposer communities and associated keys. These two nature-based products, biochar and biochar nanoparticles derived from the forest debris of invasive plant Acacia sp., supports the circular bio-based economy in a sustainable manner. Thus, this nature-based material can be utilized to address multiple environmental problems in soil, composting and management of organic residues to reduce the pollution in several stages of agricultural activities.