Potential Role of Biochar on Capturing Soil Nutrients, Carbon Sequestration and Managing Environmental Challenges: A Review

Biochar (BC) properties and its influences within agricultural soil health and environmental ecosystems largely depend on feedstock, residence time and pyrolysis conditions. The organic and inorganic contaminants from soil can be removed using BC as an adsorbent. Additionally, soil amendment with BC is known to improve overall soil quality, microbial and enzymatic activities and soil organic carbon content with nutrient retention and availability. Moreover, one of the great impacts of BC is its capability to capture soil nutrients and sequestrate carbon. The physicochemical properties of biochar could be affected by the feedstocks and pyrolysis conditions (temperature, duration, activation method, etc.). This review paper summarizes the recent research studies on the composition of BC that controls carbon presence in soil, as well as BCs role in improving soil fertility and carbon sequestration, which has not been reported in detail yet. The main finding of the present work revealed that the high pyrolytic temperatures in BC production may have negative impacts on phyto-availability of essential nutrients. Depending on the feedstock raw material and pyrolysis process used for producing BC, it has different capacities for releasing nutrients in the soil. An economically feasible method of producing newly engineered biochar, with more controlled pyrolysis and C-based materials, for suitable agriculture needs to be developed. Further investigation should be carried out to optimize the production procedure and its application to local farming community for sustainable agriculture.