Analysis of Seed Corn Bio-Char

The incomplete combustion of biomass to produce biofuels is called gasification. For this project, the focus is on the char produced from a lab scale gasifier that uses corn as the biomass. While the purpose of gasification is to produce Carbon monoxide, Hydrogen, and trace amounts of Methane gases, gasification also yields char as a byproduct. Char is the inorganic material in corn leftover from the gasification process. There are two types of char, whole and powdered. This research project focused on the comparison of the porosity of whole char, powder char, and activated carbon, as well as how to make the char produced by the University of Iowa closer to that of activated carbon. The analysis of char allows for better information about choosing a char type for various applications such as reentering the process as part of the packed bed, to a fertilizer in nutrient deficient soil, and, as earlier mentioned, used as activated carbon.