Faster Land Clean-Up Starts with Smarter Biochar
September, 2025
Myno Carbon’s Biochar 3.0 transforms remediation from costly containment to tailored restoration. Communities gain cleaner soil, restored ecosystems, and renewed land value sooner.
Across North America, the scars of extraction are visible. Petroleum spills, mining runoff, and persistent hydrocarbon contamination represent a legacy of environmental harm that continues to threaten communities and ecosystems. Yet despite decades of investment and effort, many remediation strategies remain slow, expensive, and incomplete. Conventional clean-up methods like activated carbon, synthetic amendments, and thermal treatments often contain pollution temporarily rather than truly restore the land.
In today’s climate-conscious world, the need for effective and accelerated land recovery has never been more urgent. Faster remediation doesn’t just reduce liability, it reclaims lost land value, accelerates redevelopment, and builds environmental resilience.
That’s why Myno Carbon has reimagined the roles of land remediation and reclamation, by evolving biochar through science and precision engineering into what we call our Biochar 3.0 solutions.
The global environmental remediation market has surpassed USD 140 billion, with projections showing rapid growth over the next decade. In the U.S. alone, cleanup and restoration services represent a USD 25 billion annual industry. (MarketsandMarkets Research) Yet much of this spend is directed at short-term containment rather than long-term recovery, creating opportunity for smarter, more regenerative solutions.
What is Biochar 3.0?
Myno Carbon’s next-generation innovation centers on an evolution to Biochar 3.0 solutions. While biochar dates back to Indigenous practices of enriching soil with charcoal, which eventually found its niche in agriculture and carbon sequestration, Myno’s definition of Biochar 3.0 marks a leap forward. It is no longer just a passive soil additive. It’s an evolution of traditional biochar, enhanced through rigorous scientific processes and engineering refinement.
At Myno Carbon, our biochars are derived from sustainably sourced wood waste and pyrolyzed for precision. This provides a high permanence fraction that locks carbon into soil for millennia while improving soil health and increasing drawdown. It reduces acidity and metal contamination by buffering pH and enhancing reactive surface area for chemical binding, including heavy metals of concern (such as Pb,Cd, and Hg). Myno’s engineered biochars accelerate the biodegradation of hydrocarbons and reduce the bioavailability of PFAS (pre- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
Each formulation is purpose-built, whether as granular biochar for filtration vessels, micronized particles for blended soil amendments, or Liquid Carbon Pure 125/10 for in-situ injection to immobilize subsurface contaminants and promote bioremediation.
The science behind faster recovery
Legacy sorbents such as granular activated carbon (GAC) have long been used in remediation, but they come with limitations. These materials are often fossil-derived, single-use, and designed for broad application rather than precision performance. They may trap contaminants, but they don’t support biodegradation and their disposal can generate secondary waste issues.
Myno’s Biochar 3.0 solutions address these limitations. Myno produces precision-engineered biochar products, designed for specific use cases in environmental remediation, with carefully controlled properties including surface area, pH, porosity, particle size, biochar charge, and microbial compatibility. Products can be delivered in dry form to target AC replacement for opportunities in tailings management or watersheds. Myno’s biochar products can also be delivered in liquid form and optimized for in situ approaches. From stormwater filtration to hydrocarbon degradation to PFAS removal, we design for outcomes.
Beyond contaminants, Myno’s engineered biochar also supports nutrient retention and delivery, with a high cation exchange capacity that binds essential ions like ammonium, calcium, and magnesium. These nutrients are gradually released back to plants, enhancing soil fertility and reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers.
Testing what matters
To validate this approach, Myno Carbon is actively collaborating with leading laboratories across North America to test Biochar 3.0 against major classes of contaminants. In partnership with SiREM and ECT2, Myno is conducting a series of isotherm and biodegradation studies that assess the material’s performance in controlled and semi-realistic conditions.
In the lab, static isotherm tests are measuring how well different biochar formulations adsorb PFAS, petroleum hydrocarbons (including BTEX compounds), and heavy metals like lead and cadmium. Modified biochars are being compared against Calgon F400, a benchmark granular activated carbon, to evaluate competitive efficacy. These tests are not just academic; they provide critical data on adsorption capacity and help refine the materials for site-specific deployment.
Beyond isotherm testing, Myno is also conducting biodegradation trials. Landfarming tray experiments replicate aerobic soil remediation environments, while column tests simulate anaerobic groundwater conditions. These trials evaluate how Biochar 3.0 supports microbial communities that break down hydrocarbons in situ. By measuring changes in microbial activity, contaminant concentrations, and nutrient cycling over time, Myno can assess how its formulations perform under diverse real-world scenarios.
Accelerating value in remediation
Accelerating remediation isn’t just a technical achievement; it delivers real economic and environmental value. Every month saved in clean-up reduces operational costs, accelerates regulatory approvals, and opens the door to redevelopment opportunities. For corporate landowners and public agencies, faster recovery also means faster realization of sustainability commitments, reduced reputational risk, and increased access to carbon credit markets.
Biochar 3.0 contributes to this value in multiple ways. It shortens treatment timelines, reduces reliance on fossil-derived materials, and delivers measurable co-benefits like carbon sequestration and soil health improvement. Replacing one unit of activated carbon with one unit of biochar has been shown to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases by 6.6 units of CO₂ equivalent, and prevent an additional 2.0 units from being generated during AC production. Because it is derived from renewable biomass and produced in a carbon-negative process, it aligns with climate goals while enhancing remediation outcomes.
Localized solutions at scale
Biochar 3.0 isn’t just effective, it’s scalable. Myno’s next generation biochars are manufactured from regionally available forestry and agricultural residues and can be locally produced near remediation sites using modular pyrolysis units. This distributed model reduces transportation emissions and enables customization for unique contaminant profiles and site conditions, enhancing responsiveness, reducing costs, and supporting local economic activity.
What comes next
While isotherm and biodegradation testing is ongoing, early signals are promising. Lab data already show strong adsorption capacity across multiple contaminant types, and microbial activation trials suggest that Biochar 3.0 enhances biological degradation in both soil and groundwater systems. These results will inform pilot projects currently in development with industry and government partners.
Myno Carbon believes that the future of remediation lies in precision materials and science-led strategies. Biochar 3.0 is not a material upgrade, it is a rethink of how we restore land. Built for speed, engineered for performance, and grounded in sustainability, it is the clean-up solution for a changing planet.
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Biochar 3.0: Evolved by nature. Perfected by science. Designed to restore.