Incomplete combustion of biomass or fossil fuels in limited oxygen environments produces a
range of materials including soot and charcoal, which are generally termed black carbon
(BC) or pyrogenic carbon. BC is a ubiquitous component of organic matter in terrestrial and
aquatic environments (Goldberg 1985; Schmidt and Noack 2000); for the purposes of this
chapter, biochar can be considered as a part of the BC pool, despite the fact that it is a
product of pyrolysis and not strictly a combustion process. There is a wealth of published …

Chapter 13