China 
Africa 
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Economic evaluation of biochar systems: current evidence and challenges
Published in Johannes Lehmann, Stephen Joseph, Biochar for Environmental Management, 2015
Simon Shackley, Abbie Clare, Stephen Joseph, Bruce A. McCarl, Hans-Peter Schmidt
Bamboo charcoal has been produced and sold in China, Japan and Taiwan for many years both for use in agriculture as well as for use in deodorizing and filtering. The industry thrived after the war and then declined. Recently there has been a revival with a significant number of companies selling products with prices ranging from $350–1000 t-1 (personal communication, 2013). There have been no economic studies of the enterprises making and selling this type of biochar, although they appear to be profitable. The remaining studies all find that biochar struggles to compete economically as a soil amendment rather than as a combustible energy source. For example, Granatstein et al (2009) estimate that the break-even price for agricultural use of wood biochar would be above its combustion value of $191 t-1, whilst Field et al (2013) conclude that it is more economical to use wood biochar for fuel rather than as a soil amendment unless C prices reach $49 t-1 CO2e and the biochar is being added to soils where the crop yield increases are relatively larger (due to low buffering capacity of the soil). Galinato et al (2011) find that the energy value of wood biochar is around $114.05 t-1, but estimate its agronomic value in liming reduction, yield increase and fertilizer savings at around $87 t-1, suggesting that C credits and/or supporting subsidies are necessary before biochar’s economic value in agriculture can outweigh its energy value.
Preparation, characterisation of bamboo charcoal particles and the effect of their application on thermo-physiological comfort properties of woven fabrics
Published in The Journal of The Textile Institute, 2020
G. Gunasekaran, C. Prakash, S. Periyasamy
The use of bamboo charcoal fibres, yarns and fabrics has assumed importance in recent times since they exhibit excellent functional properties like anti-bacterial, de-odouring, far infra-red rays absorption and emission, wicking, healthcare, moisture absorption, water vapour permeability, etc. It was to be noted that the availability of bamboo charcoal fibres, yarns and fabrics are limited and that too from a few parts of the world. Moreover, the manufacture of bamboo charcoal fibres involves the addition of charcoal powder in the polymer of certain synthetic fibres which was a complicated process for spinning fibres and yarns. The particle will interfere with the dynamics of fluid flow and so the spinnability would be affected. Additionally, if these particles are included in the dope, it would require more quantity to exhibit certain level of performance compared to those applied on the surface or near surface applications i.e. in the case of finishing method. Another concerning factor was the cost which was very high when compared with the regular fibres, yarns and fabrics. Since the cost factor was mentioned as one of the important reason for trying this new approach, an analysis was done to find out the cost reduction with the new method. It was predicted from the analysis that, this new method saves about 40% to 50% of the cost when compared with the original bamboo charcoal fabrics. The saving with cotton fabric was approximately 40%, the saving with the p/c blended fabric was around 45% and with the polyester fabric the cost reduction was found to be around 50%.