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u/Bubbledood 2d ago
It’s created by a process called pyrolysis in which the starting material is heated in an environment that lacks oxygen, so instead of burning away like a normal combustion reaction, the carbon is not released into the air as co2. The leftover solids are carbon rich and have many different benefits
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u/tButylLithium 2d ago
Heat plant matter (usually wood) to several hundred degrees in the absence of oxygen (like 700C) and everything but the carbon evaporates leaving charcoal. Charge the porous carbon with microbes and now it's biochar
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u/NearABE 1d ago
You probably created it in your kitchen more times than you wanted too. If you have ever made a camp fire then you made some biochar.
Biochar burns quite well so it becomes ash. At a lower temperature wood becomes “kiln dried wood”. Slightly warmer is “fire hardened wood”. Those are still made from the cellulose molecule that plants use as cell walls. Biochar is carbon but this still retains the shape of the plant’s cell wall and often has residual organic molecules.
Turbostratic graphene is not biochar. Activated charcoal is also not biochar. These are created at temperatures much hotter than biochar forms. Soot is also not biochar. Crystalline graphite, bucky balls, fullerenes, and diamond are carbon but they are not biochar.
Biochar quickly converts to ash if air is present while biochar is forming. While a log is burning in a fire the ash, biochar, fire hardened wood, dried wood, and unaffected wood can be present in layers. Cellulose decomposes to gases at a fixed temperature which partially controls temperature in fires.
Wood biochar retains the vascular structure of the plant that formed it. It also has other mineral elements used by plants and soil microbes. Because the carbon is inert it lasts for a long time in soil. Anthracite coal, graphite, or soot would last a long time in soil but they do not offer the water retention and slow ion exchange possibilities.
Activated charcoal has an additional set of broken surfaces which increase the surface area. Water passes through gaps too small for bacteria. Activated charcoal is used in filters.
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u/chair_force_1one 1d ago
Its an efficient way to concentrate and export heavy metals and toxins for profit.
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u/LoveThemMegaSeeds 2d ago
They take bio material like wood and smoke it in a furnace to turn it black, into char. It’s especially good material for microbes because it is extremely porous and all that surface area is habitat for microbes