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Char from chicken manure: physico-chemical characterization

Valentina Marsalaa; Giulia Cim

a; Claudio De Pasquale

a; Anna Micalizzi

a; Pellegrino Conte

a*;

Alessandro Pozzib; Massimo Valagussac; Giuseppe Alonzoa

aDipartimento Sistemi Agro Ambientali - Universit degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze 13,

I-90128 Palermo;bAGT - Advanced Gasification Technology, Via Trieste 2, I-22060 Arosio (CO);

cMAC - Minoprio Analisi e Certificazioni, Viale Raimondi 54, I-22070 Vertemate con Minoprio (CO)

E-mail: pellegrino.conte@unipa.it

Keywords: Relaxometry,TOC, Remediation

Introduction

Chicken manure is an excellent organicfertilizer that contains large amount of nutrientsas among which nitrogen, phosphorus andpotassium play the major role.

Intensive animal operations result inconsiderable amounts of chicken manure. Thislatter, in order, is a serious environmentalproblem due to its potential to create social risks,because of odors, and nitrate leaching into soilsand groundwater [1] [2].

Reduction of environmental and social risksdue to chicken manure demands for a correct

recycling process.For this reason, pyrolysis of chicken manurerepresents a valid solution to obtain a N-richbiochar that can be applied as amendant toenhance soil fertility [3].

The aim of the present study is the evaluationof the relaxometry characteristics of the biocharproduced from chicken manure obtained froman Italian egg-producing farm located in Sicily.

Chicken manure retrieved from a Sicilian eggfarm was pyrolized at different temperatures(400, 500 and 600C) applied for three differentheating times (10,30 and 120 min.).

Dynamic properties of water-saturatedbiochars were retrieved via fast field cyclingNMR relaxometry, in order to obtain informationon pore size distribution.

In addition, solid phase micro extraction(SPME) with gas chromatography massspectrometry (GC-MS) was applied to evaluatecompound released in deionized water atdifferent pH values.

Moreover total carbon (TC), total inorganiccarbon (TIC) and total organic carbon (TOC)contents were also measured.

Samples were also incubated with coppersolutions in order to monitor biochar capacity to

bind a heavy metal.

Results and Discussion

Results revealed that porosity of biochar isaffected by the muffle residence time andtemperature.

In fact,1H T1 relaxometry profiles (Figure 1)

showed that heterogeneity enhancement of poresize distributions occurred as affected by thelength of the thermal treatment.

In particular, the longer the muffle residencetime, the larger appeared the pore sizes of theresulting carbonaceous material (i.e. intensityenhancement of the longest T1 component).

In addition, NMRD profiles (data not shown)revealed the presence of quadrupolar dips dueto the quadrupolar interactions between waterand

14N. According to literature [4], quadrupolar

dips can be observed only when immobilizedN-rich systems are present in the system.

For this reason, we can state that atransformation of the inorganic N towardsorganic forms of nitrogen has been obtainedduring the thermal treatment.

Heating temperature affected also compoundrelease in water, in fact the largest levels of TOCwere observed in biochar obtained at 400C asreported in Figure 2.

Finally, investigation on the binding capacity ofthe different-temperature-obtained chickenmanure biochars revealed that the materialretrieved at 500 C after a muffle residence timeof 120 min can adsorb more than 90% of copperion, thereby suggesting that this biochar can beapplied for environmental remediation fromheavy metals.

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SignalxNeperofRelaxationTime%

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Chicken manure

Fig. 1.

1H T1 relaxometry profiles (Thermal treatment at 400C).

Fig. 2. Total organic carboncontent at different heating temperatures.

Conclusion

This study revealed that pyrolysis is a suitableapproach to transform chicken manure inenvironmentally and agronomically relevantmaterial. Further studies are at the momentgoing on in order to define better the chemicalcomposition of the different chicken manurebiochars.____________________1

Agblevor F.A.; Beis S.; Kim S.S.; Tarrant R.; ManteN.O. 2009. Biocrude oils from the fast pyrolysis of

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30, 298-307.

2Mengchun G.; Bing L.; An Y.; Fangyuan L.; Lijuan Y.;

Yanxia S. 2010. The effect of aeration rate onforced-aeration composting of chicken manure andsawdust, in Bioresource Technology, 101,1899-1903.3

Seth O.T.; Takatsugu H.; Tsutomu M. 2008.Effectsof carbonized and dried chicken manures on thegrowth, yeld and nitrogen content of soybean, in PlantSoil, doi 10.1007/s 11104-008-9573-9.4

Kimmich R.; Anoardo E. 2004. Field-cycling NMRrelaxometry, in Progress in Nuclear Magnetic

Resonance Spectroscopy, 44, 257-320.