Biochar is made in the same manner as charcoal, but it is intended for utilization as an adsorbent and/or a soil amendment. Basically, the key is the end use of the material. It is charcoal if it is intended to be used as a fuel; hence it is manufactured with optimal fuel properties. In contrast, if the intended use is adsorption or as a soil amendment, then it is manufactured to a different set of properties and labeled biochar. As a result, biochar shares properties with activated carbon and charcoal, but has a few unique features that distinguish it from both.

Biochar, charcoal, and activated carbon are three forms of carbon that have a lot of overlap, with very similar composition and methods of production.

Regards

Activated carbon, also known as activated charcoal and several other ‘active/activated source-material’ names, all come down to the implication of the modifier ìactivatedî. When used in conjunction with adsorbents, ‘activated’ refers to a small set of processing techniques that increase the internal microporosity of the original carbon-rich source material.

Regards

I agree with you Professor Bachir Achour. However, especially for adsorption, the production of biochar and activated carbon are very similar, mainly if biochar is activated. Thus, there is an overlap of terminologies that are already well established.

Activated Bio based carbon is known as bio char or activated bio char and well known term used in road construction industry. Where as bio based carbon used for remediation and filtration industries is known as bio based carbon or activated carbon.

Activated carbon and bio-char are not two different materials. Activated Carbon used for soil amendment is termed as bio-char. Hence, two different names for the same material serving different purposes.

Shahul Hameed I agree with you. In addition, we should not try to distinguish these two terms, it causes a false idea that they are different.

Both are same. Difference because of commercial application.

Basically, charcoal and biochar only differ in terms of its practical application Charcoal is used mainly as fuel whereas biochar has nonfuel use that includes mostly its application in environmental management.

The major difference lies in the application

I am working on air cathode microbial fuel cell. there is a lot of papers about using activated carbon as an ORR catalyst and the use of biochar for the same subject. so I want to know if they are the same, then why they use a different name for them?

Alireza Mousavi exactly. For some applications, the biochar processing is closer to activated carbon every day.

They are different conceptions. One of the significant difference is their production temperature. Biochar was usually made from biomass at lower temperature less than 700℃ under anaerobic conditions, while activated carbon was produced from prepared carbon at higher temperatures more than 700℃ (e.g. 800-1000 ℃) with activated gas such as steam, flue gas, etc. As such, thier properties are different as for specific surface (physical) and functional groups (chemical). Usually the activated carbon has a higher specific surface while biochar has more abundant surface functional groups. Moreover, activated carbon is an old conception while biochar is a quite young and popular name. Above is my own opinions for your consideration. Thanks!

https://iupac.org/projects/project-details/?project_nr=2015-056-3-600

Hi, the ansver will be disscussed by IUPAC.

The major difference between them lies in terms of their application, for example, activated carbon is typically intended for remediation or purification projects. While biochar is intended for agricultural use and is typically applied as a soil amendment.

The main difference is in the temperature of the pyrolysis process. Excellent explanation by @Bin Ji, and I agree with him.

Agree with the explanation of @Bin Ji.

I agree with Bin Ji explanation

I agree the main difference is in the temperature used in pyrolysis where a reduced temperature is required for the production biochar. Therefore, biochar can be used as precursor for the production of activated carbon. This means that their chemical characteristics like surface groups and physical properties such as specific surface area and pore volume will be different for both materials. However, it is important to state that both have been used interchangeably in many reports.

Biochar and AC preparations and properties are overlapping nowadays. Biochar is no longer used for agriculture only, but for electronic and electrochemical applications. In 2021 Astruc 's team has published a review paper in Coordination Chem Rev on Biochar-supported nanocatalyst. Biochar also serves for producing graphene as reported by James Tour at Rice University. The topic is really hot because it concerns valorization of biomass, environmental remiadiation, sustainable development, materials science, electronics, catalysis. For this reason, I think it is worth redefining what is biochar. From web of Science, I estimated the publication of 5000+ peer-reviewed papers on biochar by the end of 2021.

Dear Mohamed Chehimi

You are completely right. Biochar production and its applications are evolving more and more in a short period of time, which are increasingly controlled and improved. Definitely, biochar is as engineered as activated carbon.

Regards,

Barquilha, Carlos E. R.

I suggest this read. Clearly states the differences.

https://char-grow.com/biochar-vs-charcoal-vs-activated-carbon

Excellent explanation Bin Ji . I totally agree.

There is another aspect that is important mention in addition to the post of Bin Ji, is that at 900 °C we noted recently that biochar, if I may, is conductive and permits electron transfer in electrochemical processes, but not biochar produced at 400 °C. This is not due to specific surface area but to chemical structure and this parralels the functionalized surface of biochar produced below 700 °C noted by Bin Ji.

Another aspect is the yield, at low temperature the yield is around 25%, less than 20% if pyrolysis is conducted at T>700 °C.

Having said that, a group from India published a review on biochar production parameters and did not distinguish between T< or T>700 ° C. See Table 2 in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.10.122

Thank you all for this interesting discussion about the hot topic of biochar.

Dear colleagues,

Thanks for all your contributions. As Dr. Mohamed Chehimi commented, it is an interesting and hot topic. The use of biochar continues to advance and we can continue to discuss it, including its difference from activated carbon.

Regards,

From my understanding Biochar is a carbon rich material which is dervied from biomass. Biomass contains organic and other volatile compounds. During pyrolysis these componenents removed as gases like co, co2,H2, O2 gas makes our material more carbon rich. In a deeper way biomass contains cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin which all are have carbon with oxgen and hydrogen but structure wise all are different they disintegrate in different pyrolysis temperature. To make our material more carbon rich we have to disintegrate these biomass polymers.

we are making our material more carbon rich by removing oxygen, hydrogen and other biomass minerals. This is called biochar making our material more carbon rich also correspondingly some small surface area will be created as the oxgen and hydrogen removed so surface area increased . It is also known as carbonization

Activated carbon is a second stage after we made our biomass material more carbon rich. For activated carbon we need to increase the surface area of the material for that people are using KOH, NaOH or other chemicals in different ratios to increase the surface area. for example if we add KOH in a carbon rich material it will have more OH fuctional groups with carbon, during pyrolysis these functional groups removed as co, co2, h2 gases. Creating more porous and more surface area in it.

Hence Activated we are making our material more surface area where as biochar we are making more carbon rich.

Thank you

Both are same but have difference in production. Biochars are obtained by biomass pyrosis whereas activated carbon is a biochar produced by chemical or physical activation.