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Biological, Physico-Chemical and Morphological Analyses of Four Biochars Derived from Agricultural Waste
 
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1
Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco
 
2
Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fès, Morocco
 
3
Polydisciplinary Faculty, Ibn Zohr University, Taroudant, Morocco
 
4
Higher Institute of Maritime Fisheries, Agadir, Morocco
 
 
Publication date: 2021-04-01
 
 
Corresponding author
Dounia Fetjah   

Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Zohr University, BP8106 Agadir, Morocco
 
 
J. Ecol. Eng. 2021; 22(4):36-46
 
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ABSTRACT
Around the world, the increasing population and consumption are placing huge demands on food. Agriculture is considered one of the important sectors in the world and the force to feed humanity. While under these circumstances, which stand out by successive years of drought, degradation of soil, climate change, and global warming, this sector has multifaceted a major issue that goes beyond threatening food security. Thus Morocco characterized by an arid and semi-arid climate is one example of countries that suffered from those problems. Due to lack of rain the water resources of some Moroccan arable lands are consumed highly as well as the quality of its soils is now degraded. This issue calls for new approaches to amending the degraded soils in these regions and sustain water supplies. Indeed, biochar can be a remedy for these poor soils; in fact, it has an incredible sequester carbon on soil, a benefit on the environment as well as on plant growth. Despite its virtues, certain biochars contain phytotoxic compounds. In this study, four biochars prepared from banana waste, peanut hull, almond shells, and walnut shells were tested on three plant species (cress to test (HAP), barley for assessing heavy metals, and lettuce to assess salinity) before any field application. The chemical and physical analysis was done for the four biochars and the sandy soil, the four biochars were also analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for identifying the morphology of each biochar. The results showed that the four biochars enhanced water holding capacity (WHC), the four biochars revealed the existence of heavy metals especially for almond shells biochar and walnut shells biochar. While for the morphology of each biochar, banana waste biochar (BC-BW) and peanut hull biochar (BC-Peh) had pores more than almond shells biochar (BC-Alm) and walnut shells biochar(BC-WS). Concerning the phytotoxic tests, the lettuce was germinated in all biochars treatments except for the 8% biochar banana treatment, for the cress and barley, all the treatments were grown.
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