ARTi Podcasts

Founding member of ARTi and CEO, Dr. Bernardo del Campo together with Professors Thomas Brumm, and Nir Keren from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University published the study Fast Pyrolysis Biochar Flammability Behaviour for Handling and Storage

Microorganisms play a crucial role in soil health, maintaining ecological balance, and providing a resilient environment for plants. Biochar, with its porous structure, enhances soil health and productivity by promoting microbial diversity.

Biochar enhances soil health and reduces atmospheric CO2 levels. It can also be a friend to soil microbes, enhancing carbon sequestration in agroecosystems, contributing to climate change mitigation and sustainable agriculture.

Paul S. Anderson, Ph. D., the President of Woodgas Pyrolytics, Inc., has authored a white paper titled “Roadmap for Climate Intervention with Biochar” ( link ). The paper aims to establish “Goals for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)” and emphasizes the need for carbon removal technologies to combat climate change. Biochar is identified as the most feasible and scalable option among the available techn...

People who buy and get ready to move into a brand-new house have the chance to be the first ones to live there and have everything in top working order. For us at ARTi, soil is one of our first concerns. The soil must be strong and stable for the foundations of buildings. Strengths of soils vary due to the physical characteristics of the soil. A well-structured soil is more stable. If you’re hopin...

Agricultural residue or agricultural waste is not waste, it’s an asset. Because of biochar it’s now valuable! Biochar is a substance that resembles charcoal that is produced from biomass and is sustainably sourced from agricultural and forestry waste. These can be from corn stalks, hulls, wood chips and much more. Check out our blog on “ What Materials Has ARTi Successfully Pyrolysed (Turned into...

Biochar both sequesters carbon and can be made from forest residues that when otherwise left unused become wildfire fuels. These two main benefits of biochar in addition to soil water retention and improved soil health make biochar an attractive consideration for wildfire mitigation.

It is always a great experience to get the chance to visit other organizations in Iowa where we are headquartered which are also working towards agricultural practices that make a positive impact. Practical Farmers of Iowa is one such association. Practical Farmers is located in Ames, IA, the town that also hosts Iowa State University, the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and the USDA’s Nati...

All those spooky decaying things and the wiggly worms that live in them are all part of natural soil and help make the new plants grow. Biochar would have been decaying plant matter. Instead, as biochar it traps CO2 and aids soil structure. Soil is made up of minerals, soil organic matter, living organisms, gas, and water. Plant, animal, and microbial remains in various stages of decomposition mak...

ARTi and Iowa Women in Agriculture are both organizations native to the State of Iowa. It makes perfect sense for us to meet and share perspectives. Plus, more and more initiatives are being put forward that seek to add the input of diverse groups. Iowa Women and Agriculture is one such group that ARTi will be working with. ARTi team member and graphic designer Mechi (left) shows off biochar resul...

ARTi is not only a leading-edge environmental technology company focused on biochar and pyrolysis reactors . Our team members also contribute to bioprocess economics and technical feasibility research. Two of our ARTi colleagues have published a paper studying the feasibility of uses for residual biomass. Specifically, for the Ecuadorian market, and for one possible industrial, chemical product fr...

Great news in green technology development and biochar implementation from ARTi! ARTi designed and built a water filter full of biochar made for filtration aided by a solar-powered pump which brings water from a lake into the filter. This type of filter system is called a carbon bed filter. The pump is able to run constantly powered by the sunshine. ARTi conducted many research trials to bring thi...

As we know, climate change is due to too much carbon in our atmosphere. But carbon is not our enemy, it’s the building block of life. Every living thing is made of carbon. But the way we are managing it is disrupting the natural balance, heating our planet and destroying nature. During the last centuries we have been burning too much fossil fuels and clearing our forests. Even the way we manage la...

Small changes that make a difference! The fashion industry is the second most polluting after oil. These shirts are Carbon Neutral… what does it mean? Through an LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) we calculate the environmental impact generated by producing a t-shirt: from the cotton harvest, to industrialization, manufacturing, transportation and commercialization until it reaches the consumer. Through...

Wildfires were and are still common in the North American Prairie lands, and the flowers and grasses that make up this amazing ecosystem evolved as a result. For those that live in prairie regions, controlled prairie fires are a sign of spring.  Non-native plants are burned away during each burn, giving prairie species more nutrients and space to develop. Because prairie plants have deep root...

In April of 2021 ARTi had the chance to sell and ship 40 cubic yards of biochar. 40 cubic yards weighed at approximately 16k lb of biochar which would represent (if the conversion is x3) 48,000 lb of CO₂ or 20 Metric tons of CO₂ sequestered . With 1 gallon of biochar able to sequester 6 lbs of CO₂ this shipment represents 48,473.76 lbs (3.84 metric tonnes) of CO₂ capture!

Want to get closer to the Real ARTi feeling everyday? You prefer to let the world know that you’re engaged in practical climate change solutions. One great way to do so is to show off carbon-neutral clothing from our new ARTi wear T-shirt line. Biochar sequesters CO2, the primary driver of climate change. These shirts can be purchased with biochar carbon offsets so you will know you’re wearing an...

The ARTi Team includes researchers. Indeed, this does mean studies into topics that directly revolve around biochar such as pyrolysis and numerous aspects of soil science. However, a large number of topics can be found not too far from biochar itself. One of these is wildfire behavior studies . In fact, the idea of wildfire prevention through turning dead fuel wood into biochar has generated proje...

It is with great pride that we are able to share that ARTi was among the top 60 best teams out of 1132 registered entrants into the world’s largest incentive prize seeking to address climate change: This puts ARTi in the top 5.30% ‎of contenders! The XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition sponsored by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation is a $100 million competition aimed to address humanity’s greatest c...

ARTi is consistently working on Research and Development for biochar and pyrolysis under the direction of PhD. Bernardo Del Campo. Dr. del Campo is a biochar expert and co-author of Chapters 3 and 4 of the book Biochar for Environmental Management : Science, Technology and Implementation published in 2015 by Routledge. Dr. del Campo’s chapters focus on Biochar production technology.  The stud...

We all know we need to mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere to fight climate change . It has been a great challenge to accept that climate change is a real and serious problem. It has then been a great challenge to accept that humanity’s activities, that have made life easier in many ways, are by far the largest contributors to global warming. Well, we have good news! We all kno...

Thirty years ago the father of Enrique Sanz planted trees and in 2021 it was now time to harvest them for their timber. The process of cutting trees for timber generates a great deal of excess wood that can be converted to biochar. Instead of allowing the extra wood to decompose or otherwise go to waste, the wood residues will become biochar with the intention of improving the soils. The improved...

ARTi’s is as compelling as the topics the company deals with. Characteristically, there always is a unique combination of the down-to-Earth and the global. Juan Proano, Edson Vendrusculo, Matthew Kieffer, and Bernardo del Campo founded ARTi in 2013. We came together as a group of graduate engineers and began working on ways to help farmers and gardeners make a healthier soil. ARTi has been working...

Central to the story of biochar is Amazoinian Terra preta, fertile anthropogenic (meaning human made) dark earths in Amazonia that were enriched with char more than 8000 years ago. 1 Terra preta is the result of char and  household waste (bone, broken pottery, compost and manure) mixed into the native soil, Oxisol, which transformed this otherwise low fertility soil into a more productive soi...

On February 2nd this year, 2021 ARTi Team led by president Dr. Bernardo del Campo successfully acquired a patent in pyrolysis “Thermochemical conversion system and method”  del Campo, B., 2021, US 10907827B2 . The patent can be viewed here as well as on the Google Patent page .