Biochar, a "game changer" in climate protection, is now being produced on a large scale in Burgenland
It is bound CO2 which, when applied to the soil, can actually create artificially highly fertile soil. This should remain fertile for thousands of years. Its production is now being intensively promoted in Burgenland.
Special properties of biochar
Sponge structure
Biochar has very special properties: Its porous structure makes it an excellent reservoir for microorganisms, water and nutrients. Its surface is like a sponge. This means it can absorb more than three times its weight in water.
Soil improvement
Biochar as a soil conditioner, known as terra preta, has been known since ancient cultures in the Amazon. "With terra preta, the remains of the charred materials were the key to making the otherwise quite infertile soil fertile again in the long term," Gerhard Soja, who researches biochar at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, told DerStandard. "Biochar is more beneficial to soils that are degraded or less able to retain nutrients," says Dominic Woolf from Cornell University in the US.
Each gram of biochar has a surface area of around 300m2! So you have to be careful: Applying biochar directly to the soil can lead to negative effects, as the charcoal must first be "charged" with nutrients and microbiology. Only when the charcoal is saturated can it develop its positive effect. For this reason, biochar should always be used together with organic fertilizer. The natives of Brazil, for example, mixed it with dung.
GiganticCO2 reservoir
What makes biochar relevant, not least for climate protection, is its ability to storeCO2 over many millennia. If biochar were used globally, it is estimated that it could permanently store two gigatons ofCO2 per year.
Investing in the future
17 years of research into product development makes sense.
For example, conventional fertilizers could become a thing of the past in the long term. According to Dieter Dunst, Managing Director of Sonnenerde, normal substrates need to be fertilized at least once a year. Not so with biochar.
"With our organic black soil, you never need to fertilize again, on the contrary, fertility actually increases," says Dieter Dunst.
The development of the system that produces the Allrounder takes a lot of time, patience and, above all, high investment. Specifically, around 13 million euros were invested - with an annual turnover of around two million euros.
Investments came from the EU, from private sources and from the province of Burgenland.
The so-called "Kohloss" will now produce 1,400 tons of biochar per year.
