Pyrolysis of secondary agricultural biomasses: Database on biochar properties and agronomic evaluation

The pyrolysis of biomass and carbon storage application of the pyrolysis product biochar is a promising negative emission technology. By far the most important and also economically most attractive path is the agricultural application of biochar produced by pyrolysis. To date, biochar produced from wood has been used almost exclusively in this field of application. While the project partners in the BC-LOOKUP project are conducting pyrolysis tests on numerous secondary biomasses from agriculture such as straw or hedge cuttings, the DBFZ sub-project is setting up a publicly accessible biochar database that farmers can use to calculate how much biochar they could produce from their own secondary materials based on simple input data (e.g. cultivated area, crops, etc.). Implementation is planned as a relational database management system (SQL). Based on this, an online tool is created as a graphical user interface for the biochar database. The data can be integrated automatically (or manually) into external applications via an API (application programming interface). In addition to the primary analysis data collected within the BC-LOOKUP project in other sub-projects, data from biochar certification according to the EBC are also included in the database. The database contains the properties of the biomass and the biochar produced. The influence of different pyrolysis conditions and technologies and the experience gained in the production, characterization and agronomic effect of the biochar will be recorded. In order to stabilize the operation of the web tool and ensure long-term access to the data, the finished product will be handed over to Carbon Standards International AG. This will enable long-term use.