Abstract
For sustainable agricultural production, composting of wasted organic materials is an essential recycling method. During the composting process, turning with agricultural machinery is generally done for aeration and homogenization to stimulate microbial activity. The reduction of the non-carbon neutral CO2 from fossil combustion by farm machinery used for periodical turning must be discussed. In this study, we focused on the blending of biochar, produced by the pyrolysis of agricultural residues, with composting mixture. Recently, researchers have focused on biochar as an attractive tool for carbon sequestration. Our report suggests that the blending of biochar has a great potential for carbon offset in composting of organic waste materials. The 10% biochar-blended composting has the capacity to offset from 50% to 90% of the carbon emitted from farm machinery used during composting. Our results also showed that blending of charcoal (a kind of biochar) can suppress the emission of CH4 during composting. The porous structure of charcoal supplies an aerobic environment in which the organic materials can degrade aerobically.
