Beyond the Trough - Thailand

​"Lots of people expressed interest in the post-trough, post-Kontiki, tench solution to making char in the field without water. Here's a really simple, two minute video shot using our original test trench. In a few months when the corn harvest is in, I'll shoot a more real one up in the mountains. For now, this will have to serve. It is not, as you will see, rocket science, and as long as you dig the trench during the rainy season, there's not much work involved."
Dr Micheal Shafer

Check out the "flame cap' tag for other contributions...

RHC-composting study from Malaysia

Characterization of Local Mill Rice Husk Charcoal and Its Effect on Compost Properties

Solutions from the Jungle: The Tengkawang Factory

TLUD street kitchen - Vietnam

​From: Paul Olivier
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2018 at 17:26
Subject: street kitchens in Vietnam

A street kitchen in Vietnam is generally a grave threat to human health and the environment. A street kitchen typically burns coal, charcoal or firewood. The lighting of these solid fuels usually emits a cloud of black smoke. When these solids fuels are combusted, high levels of benzene, particulate matter and CO stream forth in all directions. But perhaps, still worse, are the highly carcinogenic cooking oil fuels.

Near the University of Dalat, there are several street kitchens close to one another. They emit large quantities of cooking oil fumes. These cooking oil fumes combine with particulate matter and nitrogen compounds (emitted by sewage lines), and when these pollutants enter the human lung, they stick there and do not come out. People get sick, and people die.

Here you see jpegs of a 150 gasifier equipped with a 3-sided wind shield, a 40-liter biochar filter, a hood and a fan.

The 150 gasifier emits levels of benzene, particulate matter and CO well within the norms specified by the World Health Organization. When cooking oil fumes are pulled through the biochar filter by means of a small fan above the round hood, they stick to the biochar and not to the human lung.

The solid fuels typically used by street kitchens are costly. But with a gasifier, one has high-grade heat at a profit, since the biochar pellets produced in the gasifier have a greater value than the raw pellets from which they are derived. In other words, one has high-grade heat at a profit.

When biochar is produced in a gasifier, dirty and highly-polluting biochar kilns are not needed. In Dalat I have seen biochar kilns that emit, day after day, huge clouds of smoke.

Gasifiers can be powered almost entirely by agricultural waste biomass, such as rice hulls and rice straw. To the extent that such waste biomass would be pelleted and used as gasifier fuel, the useless burning of this waste would not take place.

--

Paul A. Olivier PhD
27/2bis Phu Dong Thien Vuong
Dalat, Vietnam

Louisiana telephone: 1-337-447-4124 (rings Vietnam)
Mobile: 090-694-1573 (in Vietnam)
Skype address: Xpolivier
http://epwt.vn/en/home/

IBI Webinar on B4SS (Indonesia, Vietnam)

https://biochar-international.org/webinars-list/

Upcoming Webinars

IBI Educational Webinar Series: Biochar for Sustainable Soils (B4SS)

11/29/2018Presented by Ruy Anaya de la Rosa
Biochar projects spanning multiple countries are still relatively few and far between. There is much to learn from these types of multinational projects. IBI has invited Ruy Anaya de la Rosa, the Project Director from the recently concluded Biochar for Sustainable Soils (B4SS) to discuss lessons learned, challenges and best practices from his experiences collaborating biochar projects teams in China, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru and Vietnam.
B4SS was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) under the Land Degradation Focal Area in the GEF-5 Strategies.  The objective of the B4SS was to demonstrate and promote the adoption of sustainable land management practices involving the use of innovative organic amendments, based on biochar, that improve the capture and efficient use of nutrients, and enhance productivity, improve climate resilience, support rural livelihoods, and contribute to watershed management. A key goal was to promote the diffusion and successful adoption of biochar techniques among B4SS partner countries and beyond.
The project was focused on collating knowledge generated through the implementation of the targeted biochar demonstration projects. Awareness and improved understanding amongst smallholders, including women’s groups, and resource managers about the most effective biochar formulations and application rates to improve soil functions and reduce land degradation, will be created and shared among stakeholders. This integrated global approach to advance the knowledge on the use of biochar for SLM also conveyed other messages to farming communities mainly interested in soil improvement.

Cost?
Free to IBI Members or $40 for non-members. (Not a member yet? Click here to join and get webinars free for a year, and lots of other benefits!)  Registration includes access to the slides and a recording of the webinar.

To Register:
Non-members may register here for a $40 fee.  If you are a member and are expecting to access the webinar for free, please log in first and return to this page for the members registration link and code to appear. 

For more information:
For more information or if you have any questions about registration please email Caroline Peat at cpeat@ttcorp.com.  Want to become an IBI member and have access to all recorded webinars?  Visit our membership page to help support IBI.

EFB biochar, composting in Indonesia

Formulation of Biochar-Compost and Phosphate Solubilizing Fungi from Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch to Improve Growth of Maize in an Ultisol of Central Kalimantan

Gusti Irya Ichriani ^{1, 2},  Syehfani Syehfani ³,  Yulia Nuraini ³,  Eko Handayanto ⁴  

ABSTRACT:

The efficiency of phosphorus uptake by plants in an Ultisol soil is very low because most of soil phosphorus is precipitated by Al and Fe. Oil palm empty fruit bunches can be used as basic materials of biochar and compost, and as sources of isolates of phosphate solubilizing fungi. This study was aimed to elucidate the effect of application of phosphate solubilizing fungi with biochar and compost generated from oil palm empty fruit bunches on growth and yield of maize an Ultisol of Central Kalimantan. This study consisted of two experiments. The first experiment was inoculation of four isolates of phosphate solubilizing fungi isolated from of oil palm empty fruit bunches, i.e. Acremonium (TB1), Aspergillus (TM7), Hymenella (TM1) and Neosartorya (TM8) to 'biocom' media (mixture of biochar and compost generated from oil palm empty fruit bunches) to obtain phosphate solubilizing fungi that can adapt to the media. In the second experiment, the best results in the first experiment were applied to an Ultisol soil planted with maize. The results showed that isolates that were best adapted to biocom media were Aspergillus-TB7 with 60:40 proportion (60% biochar + 40% compost) and Neosartorya-TM8 with 70:30 proportions (60% biochar + 40% compost). The application of the first experiment results to the second experiment showed that the application of biocom plus Neosartorya-TM8 (BTM) on an Ultisol soil significantly improved growth and yield of maize, as well as phosphorus uptake and efficiency of phosphorus uptake by maize.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:

Eko Handayanto   

Research Centre for Management of Degraded and Mining Lands, Brawijaya University, Jl. Veteran, Malang 65145, Indonesia