Technology
sustainable
DE-Carbonization

Biochar is a solid, highly porous carbon material obtained through pyrolysis – the thermal decomposition of biogenic substrates at 400–800 °C with complete exclusion of air. Unlike conventional barbecue charcoal, this material contains over 94 % pure carbon and has high chemical stability, which means it does not decompose in soils or industrial applications for centuries and permanently removes the bound CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Biochar is purchased by agricultural businesses as a feed additive for livestock farming and as a soil amendment for storing moisture and nutrients in the root zone. In heavy industry and metallurgy it serves as a renewable substitute for fossil coke in the production of green steel, and it is also used as a component in building materials, filter systems and wastewater treatment.

Recognized quality and pollutant standards apply in the EU, strictly regulating limit values for pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Corresponding certification is the legal prerequisite for officially marketing and using biochar in feed production and agriculture within the European Union. The operator applies for it for their own production cycle; our plants are designed to meet the respective requirements.

The physico-chemical parameters of the end product depend directly on the density, particle size and moisture of the biomass used. Hardwood yields a mechanically stable biochar for metallurgical purposes, while agricultural residues such as corn cobs or husks form a brittle structure with an extremely high specific surface area, ideally suited to sorption tasks and water storage.

When wood and agricultural waste rots naturally or is burned, the carbon it contains combines with oxygen and returns to the atmosphere as CO₂. Pyrolysis interrupts this cycle by converting up to 50 % of the biomass carbon into a stable, solid form which, when incorporated into the soil, isolates the carbon for centuries and thus forms a permanent geological CO₂ sink.

The portfolio comprises the self-sufficient, batch-operated retorts Carb-BS (0.3 m³ batch volume) and Carb-BL (1.9 m³ batch volume) as well as the automated industrial continuous plants of the Carb-A2 series. These industrial plants have a modular design and are scaled by the number of carbonization chambers depending on project requirements, allowing systems with two, four, eight or more chambers.

Yes, the Carb-BS and Carb-BL models are fully energy-self-sufficient and require no connection to electricity, water or gas networks. External fuel such as dry wood or wood chips is only needed in the start-up phase to heat the system to operating temperature; after that, the process sustains itself through the thermal utilization of the pyrolysis gases generated in the system.

The plants process wood chips, split logs, green cuttings, vines, corn cobs, nut shells and other solid biogenic residues. To ensure the projected throughput and homogeneous char quality, the input material must have a uniform particle size and a relative residual moisture in the range of 20 to 25 %.

The self-sufficient retorts of the Carb-B series are used by farms, forestry operations, municipalities and research centres for decentralized processing of wood and green waste directly where it is generated. The automated multi-chamber plants of the Carb-A2 series are designed for the wood-based materials industry, specialized biochar producers and industrial companies with continuous biomass streams.

In the multi-chamber continuous plants of the Carb-A2 series, a programmable logic controller (PLC) manages the process by regulating temperature, material feed and residence time in the pyrolysis zones in real time. This automation minimizes human influence and ensures reproducible physico-chemical properties of the biochar in every batch – a basic prerequisite for supply contracts with industrial B2B buyers.

A successful project stands economically on three legs. When calculating profitability, please do not count the pure char sales alone.

The 3 pillars of the revenue side:

• Physical product sales: Certified biochar as a premium raw material for agriculture or industry.
• Disposal savings: You use residues whose disposal or landfilling would otherwise cost you money (e.g. green cuttings, shells, husks).
• Additional revenue & energy: The sale of CO₂ certificates (carbon credits) plus the use of surplus process heat for your own buildings or drying processes.

Practical tip for your calculation: For a well-tuned plant, the rule of thumb is: around 4 tonnes of biogenic residues (at approx. 20 % moisture) yield about 1 tonne of high-quality biochar. This one tonne permanently binds almost 3 tonnes of CO₂ equivalents, which you can place on the market as certificates.

Building a pyrolysis plant is an industrial project and, in Germany and the EU, touches on building law and environmental law (specifically the German Federal Immission Control Act – BImSchG).

What you need to watch from the very beginning:

• Air quality control: The combustion of the pyrolysis gases must be controlled to be extremely clean and low-emission.
• Waste management: It must be demonstrated without gaps where the biomass comes from (sustainability evidence).
• Dialogue with the authorities: Only submit documents once the technical documentation (plant layouts, emission values) is absolutely watertight. This saves months of waiting. Our engineering department supports you here with turnkey documentation.

When you produce biochar, you do something unique: you capture CO₂ that would otherwise be released as the plants decompose. On the market this is called Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR).

What is a CO₂ removal certificate? It is a digital asset confirming that exactly one tonne of CO₂ has been permanently removed from the atmosphere. In the EU, the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF, Regulation (EU) 2024/3012) governs such certificates; since February 2026 there is a dedicated methodology for biochar (Biochar Carbon Removal, BCR).

Who buys them? Large international companies (e.g. from the tech or finance sectors) that need to offset their unavoidable emissions. Buyers pay significantly higher prices for such CO₂ removal certificates than for conventional forest protection certificates, because biochar is measurable and permanent.

How do smoke and heat become a tradable certificate? The process always follows these four steps:

1. Proof of origin ➔ 2. Operating log ➔ 3. Audit (LCA) ➔ 4. Payout

• Biomass evidence: You document that your input (e.g. sawdust or nut shells) is a genuine residue and that no forests were cleared specifically for it.
• Process monitoring: The plant must continuously record that the pyrolysis temperature (usually 400–800 °C) was kept constant to ensure char quality.
• The eco-audit (Life Cycle Assessment): An independent auditor reviews the entire chain (including transport routes and the plant’s electricity consumption). This “own consumption” is deducted. The rest is your net CO₂ gain.
• Sale on platforms: The verified CO₂ removal certificates are registered on established certification and trading platforms and sold via long-term contracts or spot markets.

Your advantage: Our automated industrial plants (Carb-A2 series) already record all this data fully automatically via the software control system (PLC). They are compatible with the major platforms as standard – saving you expensive software retrofits at audit time.

Yes, absolutely. The CO₂ market does not assess the size of your factory, but the stability of your end product and the cleanliness of the process.

You can also generate carbon credits with smaller retorts that need no electricity or water supply (such as our Carb-B series). Since the volumes of individual batches are often too small for the world market, a clever principle is used here: Pooling. Several decentralized producers virtually pool their volumes, have them audited together and sell them collectively on the CO₂ exchanges.

Building a plant is one thing – operating it profitably for years is another. For stable operation, you should have three points on your agenda:

• Staff certification: Your team must not only know which buttons to press on the control system, but understand the thermodynamics of pyrolysis and master safety rules (high temperature/pressure) by heart.
• Input flexibility: If your feedstock changes (e.g. from hardwood chips to wetter agricultural residues), the temperature and material feed must be adjusted immediately. Otherwise char quality suffers – and with it your certification.
• Regular audits: Certificates for the CO₂ market must be renewed annually through surveillance audits. Clean remote monitoring of plant data is half the battle here.