STUDY OF THE CARBON DIOXIDE EXCHANGER EFFECT IN BIOCHAR BLOCKS DERIVED FROM WOOD CHIP

Abstract

Climate change caused by incremental emission of GHGs has caused several influences for various aspects, such as evident global warming since last century, rising sea level, extreme weather, and contaminated air quality. Based on global research, the majority of increased GHGs contributes to carbon dioxide, which is generated mainly by human activities. Therefore, as Singapore is a densely populated tropical island city-state, it is critical for the government to conduct applicable policy to curb the emission of CO2 and increase indoor air quality for citizens. Biochar, generated from biomass, has been considered as an alternative and effective solution to capture and store CO2 in ambient due to its CO2 adsorption ability. However, sizeable studies primarily concentrate on mitigating large-scale CO2 rather than develop biochar potentials in sequestering CO2 in an enclosed environment. Therefore, this study aims to examine the benefits of biochar as well as compare its CO2 adsorbed effect with common used CO2 absorbent, like PEG 200, to text whether biochar can be better applied as an effective CO2 exchanger than as an adsorber.

A total of three groups of samples are analyzed, namely solvent, dry biochar, and wet biochar, and BET test and TGA analysis are then carried out the provide a set of accurate and repeatable data for quantitative and qualitative analysis. Based on the results collected from the aforementioned experiments, biochar powder used is confirmed to be an appropriate microporous solid to adsorb CO2 and all three groups can reduce CO2 concentration to a certain extent. However, the solvent group exhibits an outstanding performance compared with other groups so that the hypothesis is rejected. Nevertheless, the economic and ecological benefits of biochar are still enhanced by blending with proper solvent, due to the applicability and sustainability of soaked biochar. Although there are several limitations faced during tests, all of them are tolerable and mitigated by the accuracy of related experiments. For future studies, researchers can pay attention to recognize the optimal pyrolysis conditions to enhance the effectiveness of biochar as well as repeat this paper’s test under a realistic environment. At last, in order to avoid serious damage produced by climate change, policymaker and industry should establish reliable cooperation to intensively apply various NET in the future.

Keywords: Biochar, Pyrolysis, Carbon Sequestration and Storage, Indoor Air Quality, Carbon Dioxide, Adsorption, Absorption, BET, TGA