Browsing by Author "Luo, Hongzhen"

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    Role of Nutrient-Enriched Biochar as a Soil Amendment during Maize Growth: Exploring Practical Alternatives to Recycle Agricultural Residuals and to Reduce Chemical Fertilizer Demand
    (Sustainability, 2019) Kizito, Simon; Luo, Hongzhen; Lu, Jiaxin; Bah, Hamidou; Dong, Renjie; Wu, Shubiao
    Recycling and value-added utilization of agricultural residues through combining technologies such as anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis could double the recoverable energy, close the nutrient recycle loop, and ensure cleaner agricultural production. This study assessed the beneficial application of biochar to soil to recycle digestate nutrients, improve soil quality, and reduce conventional chemical fertilizer. The addition of digestate-enriched biochar improved soil quality as it provided higher soil organic matter (232%–514%) and macronutrients (110%–230%) as opposed to the unenriched biochar and control treatments. Maize grown in soil amended with digestate-enriched biochar showed a significantly higher biomass yield compared to the control and non-enriched biochar treatments but was slightly lower than yields from chemical fertilizer treatments. The slightly lower yield (20%–25%) achieved from digestate-enriched biochar was attributed to slower mineralization and release of the adsorbed nutrients in the short term. However, digestate-enriched biochar could in the long term become more beneficial in sustaining soil fertility through maintaining high soil organic matter and the gradual release of micronutrients compared to conventional chemical fertilizer. Positive e ects on soil micronutrients, macronutrients, organic matter, and biomass yield indicates that enriched biochar could partly replace chemical fertilizers and promote organic farming in a circular economy concept.
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    Treatment of anaerobic digested effluent in biochar-packed vertical flow constructed wetland columns: Role of media and tidal operation
    (Science of the Total Environment, 2017) Kizito, Simon; Lv, Tao; Wua, Shubiao; Ajmal, Zeeshan; Luo, Hongzhen; Dong, Renjie
    Three types of vertical flow constructed wetland columns (VFCWs), packed with corn cob biochar (CB-CW), wood biochar (WB-CW) and gravel (G-CW) under tidal flowoperations, were comparatively evaluated to investigate anaerobic digested effluent treatment performance and mechanisms. Itwas demonstrated that CB-CWand WB-CWprovide significantly higher removal efficiencies for organic matter (N59%), NH4 +-N (N76%), TN (N37%) and phosphorus (N71%), compared with G-CW (22%–49%). The higher pollutants removal ability of biocharpacked VFCWs was mainly attribute to the higher adsorption ability and microbial cultivation in the porous biochar media. Moreover, increasing the flooded/drained ratio from 4/8 h to 8/4 h of the tidal operation further improved around 10% of the removal of both organics and NH4 +-N for biochar-packed VFCWs. The phosphorus removal was dependent on the media adsorption capacities through the whole experiment. However, the NH4 +-N biodegradation by microbial communities was demonstrated to become the dominant removal mechanismin the long termtreatment,which compensated the decreased adsorption capacities of the media. The study supported that the use of biochar would increase the treatment performance and elongate the lifespan of CWs under tidal operation.