Frequently Asked Questions

Biochar is a stable, carbon-rich solid made by heating biomass with little oxygen. The carbon that plants pulled from the air stays locked in that solid for centuries. We are engineering that biochar into a supplementary cementitious material, to be milled to cement-scale fineness (finer than 45 microns), that replaces a portion of the portland cement in a concrete mix. Producers batch it the way they already batch fly ash and slag, and the stored carbon goes durably into the structures they build.

Untreated urban wood residuals: arborist material, clean construction-and-demolition wood, and industrial wood scrap, processed by slow pyrolysis. Treated wood (CCA, creosote, pentachlorophenol) is excluded from our feedstock entirely. That discipline protects the consistency of the material going into your mix and the integrity of the carbon accounting behind it.

Many low-carbon approaches reduce emissions, meaning the mix pollutes less. Biochar goes further by adding carbon removal: it puts carbon that was pulled from the atmosphere into the concrete and keeps it there. The intended result is lower emissions plus durable storage, in a material producers can use without overhauling how they work.

We are developing our first production facility in the Chicago metro area. Until it is operating, we do not have biochar available for sale or sampling. We would rather say that plainly than invite trials we cannot yet supply. We are building relationships with regional producers and partners now, so commercial supply can move without delay once the facility comes online.

Because biochar substitutes for a portion of the portland cement, it's incorporated through the same mix-design practice producers use for other supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash and slag. No performance results have been published yet; we will publish results and the applicable material specification when they are available. Performance is the first thing we design for. As an early-stage company, we validate it through testing against industry standards before anything goes into a real pour.

It is designed to require no new equipment and no change to how you batch, deliver, or place concrete. Biochar substitutes for a portion of the portland cement, and it's worked into the mix design the same way producers already incorporate supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash and slag, using the plant and processes you already run. Final requirements will be confirmed through independent testing and producer qualification.

Not yet. Independent materials testing and certification are in progress, no performance results have been published, and the material should not yet be specified for commercial use. Concrete is a conservative, standards-driven industry, and we treat it that way. We're working toward the testing, specifications, and environmental product declarations (EPDs) that producers and engineers need. We partner with them on that path rather than asking them to take it on faith.

Most of concrete's footprint comes from cement, which is responsible for about 8% of global CO₂ emissions. Biochar helps in two ways: it stores plant-captured carbon durably inside the concrete, and, because it substitutes for a portion of the portland cement, each yard is made with less of the mix's highest-emission ingredient.

In the absolute sense, no, and you should be skeptical of anyone who says otherwise. Biochar holds its carbon in a stable form that resists breaking down for centuries. That storage durability will be quantified under the Puro.earth Biochar Methodology, which models carbon retention over a 200-year horizon using a decay function rather than assuming zero loss. Quantified durability of that kind, rather than a promise of forever, is what makes biochar a recognized carbon-removal pathway.

Our planned revenue model has two parts: selling engineered biochar to concrete producers, and monetizing the carbon-removal certificates issued for qualifying stored carbon. To be precise about who claims what: BCS will retain those certificates. Producers and their customers get a mix that can carry lower embodied carbon from substituting a portion of the portland cement, subject to the applicable environmental-accounting rules. They do not receive or resell the removal claim. We are structuring it this way deliberately: a tonne of stored carbon claimed by two parties is worth nothing to anyone. Single-claim ownership is what keeps certificates verifiable.

BCS does, and only BCS. We will retain the carbon-removal certificates for the biochar's stored carbon. What producers get is real but different: a mix made with less portland cement, which can show up as lower embodied carbon in the mix's own environmental accounting, subject to the applicable LCA, EPD, and procurement rules. If you operate under EPD or Buy Clean requirements and want to walk through exactly what you can and cannot claim, ask us. We would rather have that conversation before a spec review than during one.