DECENTRALISED GREENHOUSE: A FEASIBILITY STUDY OF BIOCHAR-BASED METHOD FOR SEQUESTERING CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS

Abstract

Biochar has been widely applied to soil as a means to improve soil quality and mitigate climate change due to its sorption ability. It is also realized that biochar has the ability of capturing CO2. The first and second part of the research aimed to study the influence of pyrolysis temperature, heating rate and CO2 concentration on the ability of biochar in capturing CO2. In this dissertation, biochar was produced from sawdust under pyrolysis temperature of 400 to 700˚C with heating rate of 5 and 10˚C/min, and was purged with 500 and 600ppm of CO2 to test its absorption/adsorption ability. The morphology of biochar was examined using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results showed that pyrolysis temperature is an important factor while heating rate is insignificant. The effect of CO2 concentration cannot be determined as the difference between the two concentrations is only 0.01%. The optimal biochar production condition was at 500˚C with heating rate of 5˚C/min, which exhibited an average adsorption/adsorption capacity of 3.12mmol/g. The third part of the research aimed to apply the biochar in real environment. The findings obtained from the field study concluded that it is feasible to adopt biochar as a means of removal of CO2 in the environment.