Biochar: A Regional Supply Chain Approach in View of Climate Change Mitigation

Climate change poses a fundamental threat to humanity, and thus solutions for both mitigation and adaptation strategies are becoming increasingly necessary. Biochar can offer a range of environmental services, such as reclamation of degraded land, improvement of soil fertility and carbon sequestration. However, it also raises questions, regarding sustainable feedstock provision, biomass pyrolysis, and soil amendment. These questions, among various others, are addressed in this state-of-the-art compendium. Covering a broad geographical range, with regional assessments from North America, Europe, the Near East, and Southeast Asia, this interdisciplinary volume focuses on the entire biochar supply chain, from the availability and economics of biomass resources, to pyrolysis, and ultimately to the impacts on soil properties. The combination of theory with practical examples makes this a valuable book for researchers, policymakers, and graduate students alike, in fields such as soil science, sustainable development, climate change mitigation, biomass and bioenergy, forestry, and environmental engineering.

Dr Viktor J. Bruckman is a postdoctoral researcher at the Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences. He also leads the Sustainable Forest Biomass Network (SFBN) Task Force of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). Dr Bruckman served as principal coordinator of the FOREBIOM project, looking at climate change mitigation potentials of biochar.

Professor Jay Liu is Head of Department and Leader of the Intelligent Systems Laboratory (ISL) at Pukyong National University, South Korea. He is actively involved in research on process systems engineering, with a focus on energy issues. ISL's research covers process design and simulation, and the application of chemometrics, particularly for BTL (biomass-to-liquid) processes.

Professor Başak B. Uzun (1975–2015) was a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Anadolu University, Turkey, and a member of the Carbon Materials Processing Group. Her research attempted to determine the effect of pyrolysis conditions on product yields and quality, using different types of pyrolysis reactors for bio-oil and biochar production.

Professor Esin Apaydın Varol is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Anadolu University, Turkey. She is currently working on the utilization of biomass for energy and carbonaceous products, and her research interests include biomass composition, its thermal degradation, and product characterization via spectroscopic and chromatographic methods.