Biochar leaching tests

Introduction

This scientific visit falls within a PhD topic from the UHasselt entitled Towards sustainable soil management:Optimizing Fertilizers through Engineering of Biochar-Phosphogypsum Composites. Within this project the potential use of biochar and phosphogypsum to increase soil quality for plant growth. To this end, different biochars were made in Hasselt and tested in a plant/phosphogypsum/biochar system. One open question is how much ions leach from the different biochars.

Objectives

A scientific visitor will use our optimised leaching test system to kinetically monitor the leaching process from different biochar fractions. we will offer the visitor access to our leaching set-up and will help with taking samples over time. The further analysis of the samples will be performed in UHasselt. We will be updated through the PhD progress meetings of the candidate and on bilateral meetings on whether or not the tests were successful and on the results.