permaculture

["Vital Scherrer" <vital233@hotmail.com>]

Brent,

Thanks for your reply!
This must be an excellent technology to produce charcoal as an energy 
source. There is a difference though, as "The technology developed by 
Pro-Natura is based on the utilisation of a reactor heated to around 550°C", 
while in the essay it says: "The charcoal was produced in a low-temperature 
process, not heating it too excessively. It contained within its molecular 
structure, plant resins that were heat stabilized... a community of bacteria 
exists in symbiosis with the root hairs of plants. The bacteria produce 
enzymes that release the mineral ions trapped by the heat stabilized plant 
resins in the charcoal and make it available to the root hairs of the plant 
as nutrients. In return, the plants secrete nourishment for the bacteria. 
Not only that, but the resins within the charcoal act like an ion exchange 
resin, adsorbing traces of mineral ions onto the charcoal particle surfaces 
from the rain water, and trapping it within the charcoal's molecular 
structure, where it can be held for centuries - until the soil bacteria 
associated with a root hair come along and secrete the enzymes necessary for 
it to be released once again. So the trace minerals always present in 
rainwater actually act as a fertilizer - providing the nutrients needed by 
the crops, year after year...  heat up any solid biological product to a 
temperature of about 470 degrees Farenheit...". I wonder how much that would 
be in degrees Celsius.
The content of this pdf is a bit too scientific for a layperson like myself, 
though I guess the machinery could be operated at a lower temperature too.

Vital


----Original Message Follows----
From: Brent Neal <brentn@freeshell.org>
Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Soil Carbonization - THE TREATMENT for 
PERMANENTSoil Fertility
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:03:30 -0400


On Oct 27, 2007, at 5:39, Vital Scherrer wrote:

> Hello,
> Discussing about carbon in mulches, I wonder whether the article
> below has
> ever been published and reviewed in this forum; as I am new here I
> would
> have thought it did. But as it is one of the most important issues,
> it's
> certainly vital to bring it up (again?). I would appreciate it to get
> information about experiences and possibly alternative furnace
> constructions
> and -methods to produce the low temperature charcoal, possibly
> suppliers of
> furnaces or even of the charcoal.
> Cheerio
> Vital, Madeira, Portugal

Vital -

Here's a pdf that discusses a continuous processor for doing this
kind of pyrolysis. This claims that the charcoal yield from this
design is higher than other methods and that it is "cleaner" since it
uses the methane byproduct from the pyrolysis for an energy source.


http://www.pronatura.org/projects/green_charcoal_en.pdf

B

--
Brent Neal
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn@freeshell.org>



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