ANZBC21 - Biochar in Infrastructure Wednesday October 20th 2021
Shaun Scallan
Senior Executive - Sustainability, Renewables, Bioenergy, Biochar, ICT & Manufacturing
The focus of the day was biochar applications in the built environment of which there are a growing number in various stages of R&D through to commercialisation. Along with the carbon capture benefits of biochar in infrastructure applications, biochar can catalyse many product feature improvements in the same applications.
Biochar in Geopolymers and Dispersions - John Saad CHT
We kicked of the day with John Saad Managing Director of CHT who talked about biochar in Geopolymers and Dispersions
Biochar is a beautiful product but it is difficult to work with in a manufacturing context to produce the appropriate properties required for the targeted application.
Optimising the particle size of the Biochar is fundamental in manufacturing applications.
Managing the hydraulic conductivity potential of Biochar mixtures is a major consideration in its successful application as dispersions or as geopolymers.
Optimising the reactive Oxygen sites creates a platform for further engineering this material.
There are significant carbon credits to be leveraged in many industries through the commercial application of Biochar products.
Opportunities for Graphene in Bioenergy?????Jennifer Lauber Patterson & Mal Campbell - Future Energy Australia / Frontier Impact Group
Future Energy Australia / Frontier Impact Group are to establish biochar, biodiesel, wood vinegar and graphene from biochar in a WA based project planned to start operation in Q1 2023. This plant, when in full production, will produce 8,300 tpa of biochar and 18 million litres of biodiesel as well as wood vinegar.
The process uses a high temperature Pyrolysis to generate high carbon biochar (85 to 95% carbon) which has some “graphene-like” properties in up to 70% of the Biochar produced.
Graphene will be produced at a cost an order of magnitude less than current manufacturing processes. Graphene research is underway with overseas partners who can provide graphene at the required quality into Australia for commercial application validation until it is produced locally.
There are a myriad of applications of graphene that seems to grow daily. Can't wait to see this project up and running to further the development of the biochar industry in Australia.
Encapsulated biochar used as bitumen replacement and/or additive??Alexandru Let State Asphalt NSW
Biochar in asphalt increases the life of the roads it is used in by 2.5 years according to current research results.
Asphalt with Biochar is more resilient to indentation from compaction and fatigue resistance.
Alexandru noted Environmental approvals are extremely expensive for asphalt materials. This appears to be a barrier to commercialisation.???
To summarise the biochar makes the asphalt last longer and is significantly more resistant to indentation from traffic and fatigue. Coming to a road near you.
Biochar in a changing world: future prospective???Mauro Giorcelli?Politecnico di Torino
The team at Politecnico di Torino in northern Italy has been conducting research of applications of biochar in a number of areas. The research areas includes quality analysis of biochar, specific thermal treatments and use in sensors. Also, work in application in composites has shown that biochar as a filler increases mechanical properties and also improve electrical conductivity, you could use this to detect cracks in concrete or asphalt, Mauro called it smart asphalt.
An added advantage is the electromagnetic shielding effect created when using biochar in composites.
Mauro believes that biochar is competitive as carbon filler in composites and can help waste reduction and reuse. Biochar by definition is renewable when using renewable resources so can be considered a “green” product.
Mauro finished with an idea to use plastic waste to reproduce carbon black as an idea. I have always wondered why tyres are black?
He is also co-editor on a 250 page book called Biochar – Emerging Applications.
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Negative-emission Bio-based Circular Economy???Dr Chun-Zhu Li???Renergi Pty Ltd
Linear versus Circular Economy was the theme of the presentation.
The opportunity is to take agricultural residues and get more value by using biochar to facilitate carbon storage, agricultural productivity improvement in soil or feed. Other products from biomass can be made e.g. bioenergy, fuels, chemicals and materials. This can solve what is considered a waste disposal problem currently.
There is a value chain from lower to higher value usage as listed below;
Renergi’s Pyrolysis Technology uses an integrated ball mill which takes micron to few cm feedstock and requires no further sizing.
Biochar and Bio-Oil are produced. Conversion of the Bio-Oil to ASTM compliant Diesel, LPG and Natural Gas has been proven in the pilot scale plant.
The current pilot scale project funded by ARENA and WA State Government has proved out the process and the next stage of development is a commercial scale plant.
The plan will be located in Collie WA and will take Municipal Solid Waste (red bin) from the Shire of Collie and forestry residue. These biomass streams will not be mixed but run separately.
Renergi are also looking to develop a transportable system for use in field. This will produce the oil that will then go to a centralised refinery.
A feature of the process is hot gas cleaning using char based catalysts, this cleans up gas for electricity generation thus avoiding the problems that tar deposits can cause when generating electricity and heat from the gas.
Dr Li believes novel thermochemical biotechnologies will play a critical role in negative emission circular economy. Also biomass can generate base load despatchable energy. More economic than solar and batteries in combination.
The current project will take the technology from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 to 9 which is the final level in proving the technology is use. Commercially this will move the technology ?from Commercial Readiness Index CRI 1 to 3 which is the commercial scale up stage.
Biochar concrete for marine constructions?Kua Harn Wei?National University of Singapore
There has been a lot of recent work published on use of biochar concrete for marine construction and marine related projects. The combination of biochar, mortar and concrete is a relatively new area.
Water permeability of concrete particularly in tropical countries is a significant issue with six out of ten building issues in Singapore in particular being water leakage related problems.
Harn’s research looks at the properties of biochar concrete and how these properties can be used in relation to concrete porosity and water ingress for construction but also its application to marine construction.
His research shows that the inclusion of biochar enhances concrete strength, increases carbonation for the absorption and sequestration during the curing process, and increases “self healing” of concrete with regards to micro cracking. Aside from this, Harn’s research shows a 57% reduction in permeability, contrasting a 16% increase in compressive strength.
In conclusion, Biochar concrete with 1-2% biochar from mixed wood source increases strength by 8-11% and reduces total chloride and sulfate absorption after 120 day exposure. Exposure to sulfate solution leads to increase in strength at day 42 due to deposition of reaction products in pore space of cement mortar.
These results show biochar concrete has the potential to be used for marine or coastal constructions to reduce leakage and increase the building materials strength. With sea level rise the application of this technology is set to grow as a key mitigation strategy.
Want More?
The brief summary above is supported by much more detail in the presentations. If you are interested you can access all presentation recordings for $195, an absolute bargain.
Head to https://anzbig.org/ and then click on the ANZBC21 conference link.
Thanks Andrew Kindon for help with the summary.