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Short Communication

The effect of young biochar on soil respiration


Jeffrey L. Smith
a,
*
, Harold P. Collins
b,1
, Vanessa L. Bailey
c, 2
a
USDA-ARS, Washington State University, 215 Johnson Hall, Pullman, WA 99164, USA
b
USDA-ARS, Vegetable and Forage Crops Research Unit, 24106N Bunn Rd, Prosser, WA 99350, USA
c
Microbiology/Biological Sciences Division, Pacic Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Boulevard, MSIN J4-18, Richland, WA 99352, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 4 March 2010
Received in revised form
8 September 2010
Accepted 9 September 2010
Available online 24 September 2010
Keywords:
Biochar
Carbon sequestration
Soil respiration
v
13
C
a b s t r a c t
The low temperature pyrolysis of organic material produces biochar, a charcoal like substance. Biochar is
being promoted as a soil amendment to enhance soil quality, it is also seen as a mechanism of long-term
sequestration of carbon. Our experiments tested the hypothesis that biochar is inert in soil. However, we
measured an increase in CO
2
production from soils after biochar amendment which increased with
increasing rates of biochar. The v
13
C signature of the CO
2
evolved in the rst several days of the incu-
bation was the same as the v
13
C signature of the biochar, conrming that biochar contributed to the CO
2
ux. This effect diminished by day 6 of the incubation suggesting that most of the biochar C is slowly
decomposing. Thus, aside from this short-term mineralization increasing soil C with young biochar may
indeed be a long-term C storage mechanism.
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Recently there has been increasing interest in low temperature
pyrolysis of organic materials to produce a charcoal product termed
biochar. It has been postulated that biochar is an inert substance
that could be a benecial soil amendment for increasing soil quality
and a permanent mechanismfor carbon (C) sequestration to reduce
CO
2
enrichment of the atmosphere from anthropogenic activities
(Laird, 2008; Novak et al., 2009). Biochar is not a precisely dened
material since process conditions and feedstocks can inuence the
characteristics of the nal biochar product, where slow pyrolysis
properties tend to be similar, fast pyrolysis chars are a more
chemically heterogeneous group (Amonette et al., 2008). Beyond
pure chemistry biochar is thought to have some common features
regardless of feedstock source or synthesis, in particular, potential
soil quality benets which include increases in the water holding
capacity, cation exchange capacity, and C content of amended soils
(Lehmann et al., 2008). In addition, biochar may enhance soil
fertility (Van Zwieten et al., 2010) and soil aggregation (Novotny
et al., 2009). An auxiliary benet may be the suppression of N
2
O
production from biochar amended soils (Singh et al., 2010).
Generally, biochar additions to soil may increase the soil C and N
pools but the accompanying N addition may have little added
benet for plant nutrition (Granatstein et al., 2009). Several ques-
tions remain to be addressed: what is the inuence of biochar on
biological activity (Kolb et al., 2009) or soil processes (Granatstein
et al., 2009) and is biochar truly inert in soil?
We hypothesized that biochar is not totally inert in soil and thus
contributes to CO
2
ux when added to soil. A C
4
biochar and
historically C
3
soils were used to follow soil organic matter
decomposition to CO
2
.
The young biochar was produced from a switchgrass (Panicum
virgatum) feedstock that was processed at a pyrolysis temperature
of 500

C in a lowoxygen environment for 2 h. The biochar product
had the following chemical characteristics: pH 9.7, 52%C, 1.6%N and
v
13
C of 12.57&. Typically, switchgrass loses 45% of the original C
and 65% of original Nduring pyrolysis (Granatstein et al., 2009). The
young biochar contained 40% volatile (low vapor pressure
compounds) (Spokas et al., 2010) matter and was dominated by
aromatic ring structures followed by aliphatic and to a lesser extent
carbonylic functional groups as determined by NMR (Amonette
et al., 2008). The soluble C concentration of the water extracted
biochar was 3.4 mg-C/g biochar and the N .075 mg-N/g biochar
(0.03 NH
4

and 0.15 NO
3

mg-N/g biochar). By FTIR analysis the


soluble C and N were dominated by aromatic (amide and methyl),
aliphatic and carboxylate groups.
We used two Washington State, USA soils to test our hypothesis,
a Shano silt loam (Coarse-silty, mixed, superactive, mesic Xeric
Haplocambids) and a Walla Walla silt loam (Coarse-silty, mixed,
superactive, mesic Typic Haploxerolls). The soils were collected
from the 0e5 cm depth, put through a 2 mm sieve and used eld
* Corresponding author at: Tel.: 1 509 335 7648; fax: 1 509 335 3842.
E-mail addresses: jlsmith@wsu.edu (J.L. Smith), hal.collins@ars.usda.gov
(H.P. Collins), vanessa.bailey@pnl.gov (V.L. Bailey).
1
Tel.: 1 509 786 9250.
2
Tel.: 1 509 371 6965.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Soil Biology & Biochemistry
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ soi l bi o
0038-0717/$ e see front matter Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2010.09.013
Soil Biology & Biochemistry 42 (2010) 2345e2347
moist (adjusted to 0.03 MPa where needed). The Shano silt loam
has a pH of 5.4, 0.64%C, 0.08%N and a v
13
C of 21.4 &. The Walla
Walla silt loam has a pH of 7.1, 1.27%C, 0.12%N and a v
13
C of 21.2&.
We amended 25 g aliquots of each soil with biochar at rates
equivalent to 0, 11.2, 22.4 and 44.8 Mg/ha. Biochar plus sand was
used as a secondary control. The amended soils were incubated at
0.03 MPa moisture potential in closed containers with a 1 NNaOH
trap for collecting CO
2
. Total CO
2
was determined by titration of
these traps at 2, 6, 10, 17, 28, 35, 42, 49 days. Before the titration
trapped CO
2
was precipitated with SrCl
2
to form a precipitate that
combusts at a temperature less than 1100

C. The residual Sr
13
CO
3
left after the titration was dried and the v
13
C of the
13
CO
2
evolved
was determined by isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS).
The cumulative CO
2
evolved after biochar addition is shown in
Fig. 1. Both soils showed an increase in CO
2
production with
increased biochar additions. The Walla Walla soil experienced
larger increases (Fig. 1b) than the Shano soil. CO
2
production in the
Shano soil (Fig. 1a) did not differ signicantly at the 2 intermediate
rates of biochar addition. In contrast these biochar amendment
rates in the Walla Walla soil (Fig. 1b) did generate signicantly
different rates of CO
2
evolution, and the lowest rate was not
signicantly different than the control. However, in both soils the
increases were mostly during the rst few days of incubation,
thereafter the rates of CO
2
production were similar (slopes of the
lines from 10 to 50 days).
The CO
2
signature of the evolved CO
2
from decomposition is
shown in Fig. 2. After 2 days the CO
2
evolved from the highest
biochar addition had a similar signature to that of pure biochar,
approximately 13&. After 4 days both soils continued to show
a signicant biochar inuence in the CO
2
evolved from decompo-
sition. By day 6 there was no signicant difference in the CO
2
signature between the control soil (0 biochar additions) and the
other 3 biochar soil additions (Fig. 2). This was consistent from day
6 to day 50 of the incubation (data not shown).
These experiments provide strong evidence that young biochar
is not inert but provides signicant amounts of labile C that is
readily available to soil microorganisms for use as an energy source
within a relatively short timeframe. The soluble C concentration of
the biochar was 3.4 mg-C/g biochar. The rates applied would equal
350e1250 mg soluble C/g soil which could easily account for the
difference between the highest rate of biochar addition and the
control (Fig. 1).
We conclude that there is a distinct labile C pool associated with
young biochar that may be signicant in the short-term. It is likely
that a fraction of the condensates from the bio-oil formed during
pyrolysis absorbed to the biochar during cooling. These conden-
sates are likely the source of the labile C pool and thus do not
originate from the stable carbonized components of the biochar.
Since only about 10e20% of the soluble component is mineralized
to CO
2
it is probable that the aromatic and aliphatic compounds
may precipitate forming larger more complex molecules. In the
long-term, we suggest these materials would be resistant to
decomposition and would become part of the slow to resistant C
pools in soils. Thus the claims in the literature and popular press
that the greenhouse effect of increased CO
2
could be reduced by
converting organic material to biochar and used as a soil amend-
ment may have merit.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the US Department of
Energy, Ofce of Science, Ofce of Biological and Environmental
Research, Climate Change Research Division under contract DE-
AC05-76RL01830 to Pacic Northwest National Laboratory.
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0
50
100
150
200
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300
350
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
O
C
g
u
2
l
i
o
s
g
/
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