Abstract

Biochar has the potential to be used for a widerange of applications. One of these includes utilisation as achar-water fuel, with the aim of substituting less sustainablefuels in the future. This paper reports the chemical and physicalproperties of biochar produced from sugarcane bagasse for useas a char-water fuel. Sugarcane bagasse was pre-treated withdiammonium phosphate (DAP) and pyrolysed to increase theyield of biochar. An untreated sample of bagasse was alsoconverted to biochar for comparison. The treated samples wereformulated into char-water fuel and analysed for rheologicalbehaviour. Viscosities were comparable to that reported forcoal-water slurry fuels and, in some cases, other biologicalby-products (i.e. biooils), but were higher than diesel or gasoline.Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and particle sizedistribution were conducted on the char samples and the energycontent was measured using bomb calorimetry. The energycontent of the char-water fuel would be similar to that ofcoal-water fuels if beneficiation of the biochar to remove ashcomponents can be performed.