Potential fly-ash utilization in agriculture: A global review

Abstract

Though in last four decades various alternate energy sources have come into the limelight, the hyperbolic use of coal as a prime energy source cannot be counterbalanced. Disposal of high amount of fly-ash from thermal power plants absorbs huge amount of water, energy and land area by ash ponds. In order to meet the growing energy demand, various environmental, economic and social problems associated with the disposal of fly-ash would continue to increase. Therefore, fly-ash management would remain a great concern of the century. Fly-ash has great potentiality in agriculture due to its efficacy in modification of soil health and crop performance. The high concentration of elements (K, Na, Zn, Ca, Mg and Fe) in fly-ash increases the yield of many agricultural crops. But compared to other sectors, the use of fly-ash in agriculture is limited. An exhaustive review of numerous studies of last four decades took place in this paper, which systematically covers the importance, scope and apprehension regarding utilization of fly-ash in agriculture. The authors concluded that though studies have established some solutions to handle the problems of radioactivity and heavy metal content in fly-ash, long-term confirmatory research and demonstration are necessary. This paper also identified some areas, like proper handling of dry ash in plants as well as in fields, ash pond management (i.e., faster decantation, recycling of water, vertical expansion rather than horizontal), monitoring of soil health, crop quality, and fate of fly-ash in time domain, where research thrust is required. Agricultural lime application contributes to global warming as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes that all the carbon in agricultural lime is finally released as CO2 to the atmosphere. It is expected that use of fly-ash instead of lime in agriculture can reduce net CO2 emission, thus reduce global warming also.