Ever increasing volumes of biosolids (treated sewage sludge) are being produced by municipal wastewater facilities. This is a consequence of the continued expansion of urban areas, which in turn require the commissioning of new treatment plants or upgrades to existing facilities. Biosolids contain nutrients and energy which can be used in agriculture or waste-to-energy processes. Biosolids have been disposed of in landfills, but there is an increasing pressure from regulators to phase out landfilling. This article performs a critical review on options for the management of biosolids with a focus on pyrolysis and the application of the solid fraction of pyrolysis (biochar) into soil.

The effect of biochar on the soil carbon mineralization priming effect depends on the characteristics of the raw materials, production method and pyrolysis conditions. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the impact of three different types of biochar on physicochemical properties and CO₂ emissions of a sandy loam soil. For this purpose, soil was amended with three different biochars (BI, BII and BIII) at a rate of 8 wt% and soil CO₂ emissions were measured for 45 days. BI is produced from a mixed wood sieving from wood chip production, BII from a mixture of paper sludge and wheat husks and BIII from sewage sludge. Cumulative CO₂ emissions of biochars, soil and amended soil were well fit to a simple first-order kinetic model with correlation coefficients (r²) greater than 0.97. Results show a negative priming effect in the soil after addition of BI and a positive priming effect in the case of soil amended with BII and BIII. These results can be related to different biochar properties such as carbon content, carbon aromaticity, volatile matter, fixed carbon, easily oxidized organic carbon or metal and phenolic substance content in addition to surface biochar properties. Three biochars increased the values of soil field capacity and wilting point, while effects over pH and cation exchange capacity were not observed.