Qualities and Quantities of Poultry Litter Biochar Characterization and Investigation

Excessive land application of poultry litter (PL) may lead to surface runoff of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), which cause eutrophication, fish death, and water pollution that ultimately have negative effects on humans and animals. Increases in poultry production in the Delmarva Peninsula underscore the need for more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable disposal technologies for processing PL instead of direct land application. The pyrolysis conversion process can potentially produce nutrient-rich poultry litter biochar (PLB), while the pyrolysis process can change the N and P to a more stable component, thus reducing its runoff. Pyrolysis also kills off any microorganisms that would otherwise trigger negative environmental health effects. This study is to apply an integrated method and investigate the effect of pyrolysis temperature (300 °C, 500 °C), poultry litter source (different feedstock composition), and bedding material mixture (10% pine shavings) on PLB qualities and quantities. Proximate and ultimate analysis showed PL sources and bedding material addition influenced the physicochemical properties of feedstock. The SEM and BET surface results indicate that pyrolysis temperature had a significant effect on changing the PLB morphology and structure, as well as the pH value (7.78 at 300 °C vs. 8.78 at 500 °C), extractable phosphorus (P) (18.73 ppm at 300 °C vs. 11.72 ppm at 500 °C), sulfur (S) (363 ppm at 300 °C vs. 344 ppm at 500 °C), and production yield of PLBs (47.65% at 300 °C vs. 60.62% at 500 °C). The results further suggest that adding a bedding material mixture (10% pine shavings) to PLs improved qualities by reducing the content of extractable P and S, as well as pH values of PLBs. This study also found the increment in both the pore volume and the area of Bethel Farm was higher than that of Sun Farm. Characterization and investigation of qualities and quantities of PLB using the integrated framework suggest that PL from Bethel Farm could produce better-quality PLB at a higher pyrolysis temperature and bedding material mixture to control N and P runoff problems.