BCS is developing its first Chicago-area production facility. Product is not yet available for sale or sampling; independent testing and certification are in progress.
The path, end to end
Plants pull carbon from the air. We will lock it into a stable solid and put that solid to work in concrete, where it stays for the life of the structure.
BCS will retain any carbon-removal certificates issued for the stored carbon; producers get the lower-carbon mix. Certificate ownership is explained on the Carbon Removal page.
What happens at each stage
1 · Feedstock
It starts as untreated urban wood residuals: arborist material, clean construction-and-demolition wood, and industrial wood scrap. Treated wood (CCA, creosote, pentachlorophenol) is excluded entirely. That discipline protects both the consistency of the material and the integrity of the carbon accounting behind it.
2 · Slow pyrolysis
Slow pyrolysis heats those residuals to high temperature with little oxygen. Rather than decaying or burning and returning their carbon to the air, the wood becomes biochar: a stable, carbon-rich solid that resists breaking down for centuries.
3 · Milling to cement-scale fineness
The biochar will be milled to cement-scale fineness, finer than 45 microns, with particle size, dosage, and moisture controlled to a consistent spec. Engineering the material to a consistent spec is what lets it behave predictably in a mix.
4 · Into the mix design
As a supplementary cementitious material, biochar replaces a portion of the portland cement. Producers incorporate it through standard mix-design practice, the way they already use fly ash and slag, designed for existing SCM workflows, with no new equipment anticipated and no change anticipated to how they batch, deliver, or place concrete.
More detail in the FAQ, or get in touch to talk specifics.
Want the technical detail?
We are glad to walk through feedstock, process, and how biochar fits your mix design.
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