the Rice Thresher

Issue date: 1/9/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Deian Tabakov Wiess College Senior Jeremy Caves

Before the Owls reigned victorious in the Texas Bowl, a different group of Owls beat over 200 participants to claim first place in Houston's Recycle Ike Contest. A group of Rice faculty and staff members led by Wiess College senior Jeremy Caves and Earth Science Postdoctoral Research Associate William Hockaday created a proposal to turn the 5.6 million cubic yards of debris, including fallen trees and other green waste, left by Hurricane Ike into atmosphere-friendly biomass charcoal known as Biochar.

"There are two things you can do with dry plant material," Assistant Earth Science Professor Carrie Masiello said. "You can burn it, which is to combust it in the presence of oxygen, or you can pyrolyze it, which is to heat it in the absence of oxygen."

Biochar, the result of the latter of these two options, acts as a carbon trap, decreasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere during the natural and fire-induced decomposition of agricultural matter, Masiello said. Along with greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is known to contribute to global warming. Masiello also said plant productivity can double or even quadruple when Biochar is introduced as a fertilizer. Finally, Biochar is capable of generating small amounts of electricity by capturing methane and hydrogen off-gases, Masiello said.

City of Houston officials wanted to avoid sending the woody debris left behind after Hurricane Ike to local landfills, a process that can cost $30-$40 per ton, Caves said. The competition sought to increase interest in sustainability and generate solutions to take care of the debris left by Hurricane Ike.

"When I saw this [competition outline]," Caves said, "I thought, 'Wow, this is a great application of Biochar.'"

Caves heard about the competition through an e-mail forward and, later, in a Houston Chronicle article. He contacted Hockaday and expressed interest in submitting a proposal advocating Biochar. Caves met with experts on Biochar, including Hockaday, Masiello, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Chair Kyriacos Zygourakis and Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson, to determine what ideas to include in the proposal.

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