Transcripción del resumen del autor. Sewage sludge is a renewable, negative-cost organic material that is well suited for the production of biocarbons. Due to increasing interest in the use of biocarbons for soil beneficiation and carbon sequestration (i.e., "terra preta" applications), the aim of this paper is an assessment of the production of sewage sludge charcoal for land application. By use of the flash carbonization process we measured sewage sludge charcoal yields near 30 wt % and fixed-carbon yields near 18 wt % from sludges with moisture contents near 7 wt %. Increasing the moisture content of the sludge reduced the charcoal and fixed-carbon yields; nevertheless, sewage sludge with 30 wt % moisture was successfully carbonized. The presence of heavy metals in sewage sludge is an important concern. We found that heavy metals with low boiling points (e.g., As, Cd, Hg, Se) were prone to elution from the carbonization reactor. Because the heavy metal content of the sludge used in this work was not high, the charcoal was found to be acceptable for land application according to U.S. EPA regulation 40 CFR Part 503.

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