AWRC Graduate Student in Environmental Dynamics is Working to Find Water Quality Solutions Using Biochar

Brittany McIntyre is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas conducting research to find water-quality solutions using Biochar. McIntryre focuses her research on harmful algal blooms and the relationship of activated charcoal or biochar.

During her research, she has taken biochar which is pinewood that has undergone an extremely heated process in the absence of oxygen that produces a black charcoal substance. She then looks at the ability of that biochar to be able to remove nutrients from an aqueous solution. The nutrients are what feed algae which causes issues like water clarity and produces toxins.

She also determines if there is any relationship between biochar and harmful algal bloom biomass in general or in toxin production. Her results show that unless the biochar is engineered in some way, it doesn’t readily update nutrients from aqueous solutions. She also found that there is some relationship between biochar and algal bloom.

In her research, she collected samples from her study site, Lake Fayetteville.

Image by courtesy of Brittany McIntyre