The project ran between November 2018 and July 2019.

Contaminated soil treatment can quickly become very expensive for companies and society at large. Such soil is very often contaminated with different types of heavy metals as well as with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Already low contaminated soil needs to be excavated and carried off-site for treatment, which is costly.
Using biochar to defang such toxics instead of removing it from the soil provides a solution for in-situ treatment at much lower cost. Biochar adsorbs and locks receptors of the toxics and thus prevents plants and soil life from absorbing these toxics. Biochar qualities vary and there are very little available know-how on how to achieve optimal performance for soil- remediation while minimizing costs. There lies an opportunity in Biochar since it can be designed and refined at nano-level during the production process for optimizing adsorption of certain elements and enhancing required functions for soil remediation in particular.

We have developed 2 concepts and recipes of a mix of biochar, clay, grass, minerals etc. With the help of physical treatment of biochar to increase surface area we aim to improve adsorption activity. The main goal of the tests is to measure adsorption capacity of PAH and heavy metals of two different post-treated biochar recipes. The project will also perform a desk study to compare available treatment methods from a technical and cost-benefit perspective as well as a market study to quantify the market opportunity for enhanced biochar products for soil remediation.

Participants

NSR AB, Pamoja Cleantech AB and Swedish Geotechnical Institute (Statens geotekniska institut, SGI).

Budget

The project’s total budget was 1 MSEK.