Biochemchar and Poduculture: From Food to Waste to Fertile Soil

The first appearance of the term biochar in the scientific literature was by the author of this work in a 1998 national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Biochar consists of carbon and some mineral matter prepared by the thermal treatment of vegetable matter such as wood or crop residues. Biochar is a naturally occurring material, especially as a residue from forest fires and prairie fires. Its ability to promote plant growth has been known for hundreds of years, for example, from the growth of plants at sites of habitation where wood has been burned and has formed charcoal in years past. Biochar-enriched soil, known as terra preta, has been produced deliberately by humans in centuries past, most notably in South America where Inca Indians prepared it for terraces upon which they grew crops in the challenging conditions of the Andes Mountains. After about 2005 there developed a strong interest in biochar as a means of soil enrichment in the United States and other countries.
This book discusses the uses of biochar prepared by a gasification process that maximizes the production of carbon. This is the ChemChar gasification process developed by the author in the late 1980s, first used for the destruction of refractory organic wastes such as PCBs and later extended to the gasification and production of carbon from crop residues. Formerly patented as the ChemChar gasification process for the destruction of wastes and the reactivation of spent activated carbon, the carbon product of this process is called biochemchar.
One of the major uses of the ChemChar gasification process is the gasification of biosolids (dewatered sewge sludge) consisting of the main solid product from wastewater treatment. ChemChar gasification of wastewater treatment biosolids leaves a solid residue consisting of carbon and mineral matter called biochemchar and produces a combustible gas product, which can be used to generate power, making the process energy self-sufficient. During the ChemChar gasification process the carbon is briefly heated to incandescence, a very high temperature that results in the destruction of refractory organic materials and pathogenic microorganisms. This means that these toxic substances, which may have the potential to persist in wastewater treatment plant biosolids, are completely eliminated.
This book describes a research project in which biochemchar prepared from wastewater treatment plant biosolids and, mixed with commercial soil fertilizer, was used to grow corn in a test plot. As shown by the sequence of photographs of the corn during the growing season, the fertilizer-augmented biochemchar was very effective in promoting early growth of corn, early onset of tassels and corn ears, the production of larger stalks, and early maturity with relatively higher yields.
A second aspect of this book is the use of biochemchar in poduculture, an agricultural process in which excavations, or pods, somewhat less than a meter across and of the same dimensions in depth, are made in terrain lacking topsoil and are filled with an artificial soil, in this case prepared from a mixture of clay, pulverized mineral matter, and compost (made from Spaghum peat moss). Photographs in the book illustrate the healthy growth of corn and squash in one of these pods embedded in a gravel-filled terrace.