Nature’s carbon cycle vs. SkyCleans’s carbon cycle:

By storing half of the carbon in agricultural residues as biochar in each cycle, SkyClean achieves the paradoxical but very beneficial effect that the more fuel the plant produces, the more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere.

From organic by-products to high-return value streams

SkyClean pyrolysis has two main value streams, each with its own market value and climate impact:

Fuel value stream: Pyrolysis is a highly versatile biomass-to-energy platform, delivering gas and other energy products with a carbon-neutral climate impact, i.e. green fuels that can replace fossil fuels.

The pyrolysis gas, emerging from the process, comprises a diverse mix of hydrocarbons. These range from smaller molecules like methane — a primary component of biogas and natural gas — to longer carbon chains that form tar upon cooling.

Stiesdal SkyClean is developing additional high-value energy products derived from this pyrolysis gas. Through a cooling process, a portion of the gas can be condensed into bio-oil, offering a potential feedstock for the transportation sector.

Alternatively, both the gas and the resulting oil from pyrolysis can be further processed into Power-to-X (PtX) solutions, such as aviation fuel, broadening their applicability in the energy transition.

Biochar value stream: SkyClean’s high-temperature pyrolysis process ensures that almost all the carbon in the biochar will be preserved in the soil for centuries, if not longer. Once applied to agricultural land, the biochar forms an irreversible carbon sink, representing a lasting and credible carbon offset option. Carbon accounting for biochar takes into account emissions from production, transport, and use.

SkyClean biochar is certified under the voluntary European standard The European Biochar Certificate, ensuring environmentally safe biochar free of tar and toxins.

SkyClean offers much more than emission reduction

Biochar offers several advantages beyond carbon sequestration. In addition to facilitating long-term carbon storage, it has been known for millennia to enhance soil quality and boost food production.

SkyClean’s pyrolysis process leaves the nutrients in biochar readily available for absorption by new crops and makes biochar an attractive soil additive.

SkyClean biochar spread on an established cornfield for the purpose of photography. In practice, spreading is aimed to be done before or during sowing, where the biochar is plowed or harrowed into the soil.

In recent years researchers have found biochar to possess a wide range of additional benefits for agriculture:

• Biochar improves water retention in sandy and other types of arid soil.
• Conversely, biochar improves water flow in heavy clay soil, attractive in regions suffering from increased precipitation due to climate change.
• Remains of antibiotics, pesticides, hormone-like substances, and micro plastics occur in slurry and manure and tend to be concentrated in soil after fertilization. The pyrolysis process of SkyClean breaks down these residues to harmless constituent molecules.
• Biochar reduces leaching of nitrogen.

In addition to the benefits of biochar, SkyClean will also help agriculture lower emissions from methane. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, and it accounts for a large part of emissions from agriculture.

The pyrolysis process of SkyClean eliminates methane from the feedstock and incorporates the constituent elements into the oil and gas fractions.

The technology offers a unique opportunity to implement game-changing climate mitigating initiatives in agriculture, while supporting sustainable productivity increase in both advanced farming economies and in low-tech agriculture in developing countries.