"A large amount of carbon is trapped in biochar, remaining stable for hundreds of years"

Tech

The new policies to contrast climate change have brought soil back to the center of the discussion, remembering that soil degradation is an environmental problem throughout US. Therefore today, as never before, the benefit obtained from the ecosystem service of biochar represents a real opportunity for the agricultural supply chain.

Besides the use of advanced technologies to treat water from oil and gas, the project is based on the use of a pyrolysis plant to produce biochar.

Biochar is charcoal produced in specific pyrolysis plants from plant biomass which, once distributed into the soil, has an important effect on the global fertility (agronomic effect) and allows the storage of carbon in a stable form contributing to the sequestration of carbon dioxide, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (environmental effect).

During the biochar production process, a significant amount of carbon of plant origin is “trapped” in the biochar. This share is largely stable (at least 80% of the total) and it persists in soil for hundreds of years.

The carbon sequestration potential depends on its characteristics which are influenced by the type of biomass used, the production process and the pedological and climatic conditions of use.

Even if the production of biochar is well known for a few years, the use of it as main component for carbon farming in a whole agricultural cycle is today innovative. Proof of this is that only recently has there been a global methodology for the quantification of sequestered carbon emissions given the incorporation of biochar into the soil.