Hannah: From Argus Media, this is the "Biomass Beat," a podcast focusing on all discussions that affect the biomass industry. I am your host, Hannah Adler, deputy editor on the Biomass desk for Argus Media.
Today, I'm joined by Chris Weiberg from Biomass Energy Lab. So this week we're going to take a closer look at the growing role of biocarbon and biochar in the global biomass sector following the latest meeting of the ISO Technical Committee 238 in Berlin at the end of June.
Now, as standardization efforts expand beyond traditional biomass fuels, we're going to explore what's been driving demand, the key new standards under development, and what that could mean for emerging markets from carbon removal to green steel. We'll also examine pellet safety, industry growth, and the biggest takeaways for producers and end users. Thank you for coming on, Chris.
Chris: Well, thank you for having me. This is a really great opportunity given that these meetings just concluded.
Hannah: Well, exactly. I mean, yeah, as you said, it concluded the end of June. So I guess, could you start by briefly explaining what happened, and then what are some of the key new work items that you launched in Berlin at this meeting?
Chris: Sure. So just to give you an idea of the ISO/TC 238 plenary and annual working group meetings, we do work all throughout the year, but this is our one and only opportunity to actually come together face-to-face to kind of have a meeting for each of the different working groups. And then they call it the business meeting, which is the plenary meeting where we essentially identify a number of resolutions that we then put in action.
So all throughout the week, there are generally two different working group meetings each day, morning slot, afternoon slot, kind of all through the week. It's where we dig deep into the nuts and bolts of the individual standards and wrangle them through as far as direction and what new work items we're going to engage on.
And then, finally, at the end, Friday during this week, now we're essentially identifying resolutions, the countries vote in order to say, yes, we're proceeding with this resolution and now we initiate the project. So call it the final day is the official cap and launching of work items.
So that said, you asked the question, what are the key new work items? You know, there were, I think I identified 11 resolutions that have pertinence for the industry. Some of them were just updating old standards and a bunch of them were creating new ones. And so we'll start with the new ones since that's the direct ask. There were four different standards that were being created that are kind of brand new.
One is to identify a self-heating method for biocarbon materials, very pertinent for international transport of these materials to be able to properly classify it for shipments. Another standard that was newly initiated as a conductivity standard, everybody thinks of conductivity historically in terms of, like, the salt content. This is a method for the direct analysis of the conductivity of the solid char. So a little different, same name, but it's the conductivity of the solid char.
Another one is being launched in order to develop an actual method for random reflectance as it pertains to biocarbon. And then these are the bigger, to me, the most sweeping and important. It's the proximate and ultimate analysis. We have individual test methods for moisture and ash, volatile matter, etc. But oftentimes, these are lumped together in a suite where you need to think about the entire package together.
We're going to be creating a standard for the proximate analysis, a separate standard for the ultimate analysis. And it's in these standards where we get to the nitty-gritty of some of the industry issues of the past, such as when the math doesn't all out, what do you do? And how do you even calculate things like H to C ratios? We've never really had this before. So those are the primary new standards that are coming.
Hannah: Okay, wow, that is a lot of standards. I'm very impressed with the amount of different improvements that are being made to the pyrogenic biocarbon industry. Would you say that the ISO/TC 238 is seeing this...the pyrogenic biocarbon is a major future product category? So, rather than just an addition to the biomass fuel markets, and if so, what do you think that tells us about the growth of the pyrogenic biocarbon industry?
Chris: Yeah, for sure. There's definitely a changing in the production category. So historically, ISO/TC 238 has been all about solid biofuels. And now, to a large extent, these new initiatives are anything but fuels. It's for all other applications. And I think the key way you can put a finger on that is by looking at the participants.
So within the last couple of years, the vast majority of the experts that are involved are now very highly focused on biocarbon applications. So we've definitely seen a shift from a biofuels focus to the pyrogenic biocarbon focus. And it just, I think, does give you an indication that it's this sector that's really going to see the growth coming down the road.
We still have active projects, of course, on solid biofuels. They're simply more in the maintenance and tweaking mode. But when it comes to the organic growth, I think what we're seeing is these standards are intended to launch a large sector of organic growth within this pyrogenic biocarbon space.
Hannah: When you mentioned before about the conductivity analysis, and I know I think last time we were talking about permanence, and you're talking about the ratios, what gaps in the markets or in existing testing methods are these improvements meant to address?
Chris: So when you think about random reflectance as just an individual example, there is already an ISO test method for random reflectance. It's been used in the coal field for many years. It's a petrographic technique. The big question mark is, well, how do you apply it to biocarbon? And are there certain aspects that need to be refined in order to make it better suited for biocarbon?
So that's essentially what it's intended to do. Laboratories, for example, can automatically grab the existing random reflectance methodology and just say, oh, I'll just follow it, and I should be able to deliver an analysis. What we find when that's the case, lab after lab, may not come to the same conclusion on how these tests are going to be run.
By initiating these as new work items under ISO/TC 238, it's with that anticipation that we're going to take an existing method and kind of refine it into the exact step-by-step procedure so that anyone performing this technique within this space has a recipe to follow that will land you in the same place. So it really should help with repeatability and reproducibility, and that's an example of the random reflectance test, for example, and what it would deliver.
Conductivity, on the other hand, it's a new metric. A lot of people have asked this in the past, and there's just no method to follow. There is a technique out there. It was developed by a private entity, and so people know that it's available. It's just not drafted into an actual standard that people can follow beyond perhaps that entity performing the test for you.
So other laboratories can't really adopt it until there's an actual method that describes the equipment, and so this is an attempt to make sure that it's described in a more usable fashion internationally so that people can start developing and conducting this testing in their laboratories. So anybody currently looking to perform this lab analysis doesn't have a guide to follow, and so this would be creating that guide. So these are some examples, just to give you a sense as to what we accomplish by developing the new methods.
Hannah: When you are sort of developing these methods and looking to see who's going to be using them or looking at them, how much of an eye do you have on who's driving the demand for more of this transparency? Would you say it's like the carbon removal markets or the industrial users, such as steelmakers or other material companies?
Chris: Yeah. So I would definitely say all of the above. We definitely have a huge interest from the carbon market side. We also have a huge interest from the steel side. There is no one sector that has really stood out as being, like, the one and only or the key driver. I would say there are multiple market sectors that are all kind of pushing for the same end goal, which is good, solid standards to benefit the development of this market.
So it's multi-front, from our perspective, and I will say...call it the biochar carbon sequestration side of things is a strong pillar and the steel sector is a strong pillar. But there are also many smaller pillars that all add up to strong pillars, like my analogy, I guess. But bottom line, it's not just from one entity or direction. It's numerous directions that were seeing this push and grow.
Hannah: So I actually wanted to sort of jump in, like, a little bit more specifically to a few of the things that I saw in the resolutions. So I think also given the UN agencies, the International Maritime Organization's rule, that could potentially...it's going to change how pyrogenic biocarbon is classified in cargos, and it's going to be clatter the dangerous goods.
And I noticed that in the resolution, there was a new technical specification on guidance, prevention, detection, and how to handle self-heating of wood pellets. I was wondering if that was... Well, firstly, how significant safety is today as a challenge, and if industry practices are keeping up with the growing demand and transportation of the volumes. And also, in light of the IMO rules, is that something you're looking at as well for pyrogenic biocarbon?
Chris: Yeah. So that's a big sector here, and all contained within ISO/TC 238, it's Working Group 7 that is focused on developing standards for both solid biofuels and pyrogenic biocarbons. So this new technical specification about wood pellet heating, it is a new project that's going to be conducted within Working Group 7.
So those experts are going to be meeting and wrangling over language to develop it. It'll go out for country-by-country voting multiple times, so there will be plenty of opportunities to contribute, even if you're not on the working group but involved in the overall technical committee work.
So that all said, you know, safety is something that...it's like you're never fully caught up. You're always looking at the next opportunity to improve upon what you've done. Historically, we already have a self-heating test, right? That, you know, it's a specific test procedure for how to conduct self-heating measurements on solid biofuels. In this case, even something more specific, just wood pellets, there's enough concern and ongoing desire to do better.
And so, this new technical specification is to try and bring together the specific information about wood pellets and not just a general standard about self-heating as it pertains to all solid biofuels. So this particular standard is called trying to improve upon what's already existing, make sure the complete information is captured, and just educate everybody on what we know about self-heating and how to assess it and, you know, keep it in the forefront because it has been a large concern over many years.
And, you know, it's always something we just want to know more and more about and make sure people know how to address it. Yeah. And same with this the pyrogenic biocarbon side, you know, that standard is more specific to wood pellets, but the UN standard for self-heating is no longer used to, you know, in and of itself, to be able to say that this material doesn't have self-heating risk for pyrogenic biocarbon specifically.
And hence, the desire for the self-heating standard also under Working Group 7, it's intended to be able to say, well, can we create a test for pyrogenic biocarbon that the IMO will say, yes, a test for this method is again going to be usable to classify it as a non-hazardous good. So always working to do better, looking for more opportunities to kind of augment safety practices.
Hannah: And is it also, yeah, making it more specific to the product rather than just relying on a sort of pre-existing standards, which is maybe broader and could have applied to anything.
Chris: Right. Yeah. So it's like it's not just, hey, finish that, let's move on. It's that concept of continual improvement. Well, we got that far, now what else could we do to make it even better, you know? So we continue to work on these standards and augment them. And there's just so many people globally that bring ideas to this venue, you know, so during our meetings where just anybody under the sun involved in these technical committee meetings can bring these ideas forward.
And if it makes sense, we generally move forward with a new standard or technical specification or even there's other ways of expressing information, not just as standards, so to speak. It could be technical specifications or technical documents. So there's many ways in bringing information to light through this process.
Hannah: I saw also that the ISO/TC 238 had appointed additional liaison representatives to ISO/TC 27, which is coal and coke. Would you say that shows an increase in demand for biocarbon from larger industrial users that would typically use coal in steel making, for instance?
Chris: Yeah. So the actual switching of liaisons or adding liaisons, call it a relatively minor point of the overall business workings. The concept is TC 238, it's focused on solid biofuels, but a lot of the work we do is also parallel with the coal industry, right, this approximate ultimate analysis standards, individual test methods. They look very similar, there's subtle tweaks and differences, and even at times, you question which side of the line should this material be tested in accordance with, coal procedures or solid biofuel procedures.
And so, ultimately, the work has landed on ISO/TC 238, but we still want to know what's happening within the TC 27 committee, which is coal and coke. And so, we've appointed liaisons in the past, but our liaisons aren't coal people, you know, they're solid biofuel people trying to monitor the coal side. And what we found at this meeting is now, all of a sudden, we have multiple coal interests in the room and involved in these meetings.
And so, you know, the subtle part is, oh, well, now we can actually have liaisons that participate on TC 27 reporting back to ISO/TC 238 on what's happening. So they'll be there at the TC 27 meetings and they'll be coming to our ISO/TC 238 meetings. We've never had that before.
And so now, all of a sudden, we're seeing coal people here in the TC 238 group. So, yes, it is a shift. It is telling you that we're sparking interest on the coal side of things and actually getting some of the technical entities over on their side to participate in ours as well. So that's a very positive sign.
Hannah: Sure. Are there any other liaisons you'd be looking to attend the meetings or?
Chris: You know, so we've always had a number of other committees that we keep tabs on. An example is ISO/TC 300, which is solid recovered fuel/now redubbed as solid recovered materials. We have a number of people that attend both. So the TC 300, you know, some of our participants are involved in both committees.
And so we've had that already with ISO/TC 300. Kind of the significance here was gaining representation from ISO/TC 27 this time around. So I can't remember if we've got others. There's a few others, like, sustainably-related committees. I think there's a few others that we have liaisons for where we maybe don't have, you know, super well-suited liaisons as compared to having experts on both. But they're not necessarily as impactful in the current work. You know, having coal people in the current work is very important, and we really appreciate having that this time around.
Hannah: Yeah, for sure. From your point of view, are there any areas of standardization that are still missing to biochar and biocarbon?
Chris: Yes. So, you know, the interesting part with this, you know, we talked about the new work items. Some of the other things that were launched, we'll say, there are existing work items that just need to be tweaked. And it's as simple as sampling, sample preparation, some issues with major and minor elements, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen analysis. These are all different standards that just need some tweaks in order to get them there. And we're opening those up as well.
And so this is an opportunity for quite a few different methods to, kind of, come to the finish line. And the key being you can't finish unless you start. The biggest gaps we have are, you know, you only have so many project managers that can lead these projects. And if nobody offers to lead them or brings it forward as a country, they just kind of stay in limbo until such time.
So as an example, here, specific surface area, I'll use that as my prime example of a method that needs some tweaking that's not yet opened up for tweaking. We identified during the American National Standards Project that it's kind of like the random reflectance method. There is an ISO test procedure for specific surface area. People generally referred to it as the BET nitrogen surface area. But the method itself only gives vague guidance on how to run this test. It's like, in general, how does this methodology work?
When it comes to doing it on pyrogenic biocarbon, biochar in particular, there's a lot that goes into properly degassing it, and drying it, and, you know, how exactly should it be run. That's not in the method. It's up to the laboratory to figure out how they're going to do it. And each lab might do something different. So, again, repeatability between multiple labs trying to run the same analysis isn't set.
That's a method that we know has all kinds of issues that needs to have a major tweak and it never got opened during the ISO technical committee. It's because nobody offered to project lead it. And so, if there's somebody out there that has a burning desire to get this method to the forefront, we need a plan and a project leader. And that's a great example of a method that's not there yet.
There's also some various methods with the steel industry, like reactivity would be just an example. There's all kinds of different metrics that the steel industry needs where, you know, you're asked about their properties as it pertains to steel manufacturing, but they weren't necessarily opened up as new projects during this last meeting in Berlin. So there's, for sure, a number of methods that have been discussed that are still in the unopened state.
So until they become open, they'll just sit there in limbo waiting for someone to champion that method to bring it to the forefront and get it set for pyrogenic biocarbon. So, you know, I guess that's job security, right? In years to come, they'll get opened up and will continue to work on more and more over time. They fall into that same category of continuity improvement. So finish one project, what's next? That's what we'll do.
Hannah: Yeah. It sounds like a never-ending cycle of improving the standards.
Chris: Yeah. So I think I had mentioned in an earlier podcast that it took us 20 years to make the solid biofuels. We certainly don't want it to take that long this time around.
Hannah: You can do a podcast. We'll have a lot of podcasts to cover.
Chris: Yeah. Give you some good material for future.
Hannah: What was the single most important outcome, would you say, of the Berlin meeting?
Chris: You know, I'll put it this way, the single most important outcome was action. Over the last two years, maybe three, we've met annually somewhere in the world, right? And we have our meetings, and we discuss launching or even just changing the title and scope. It took us an entire two years to change the title and scope of this technical committee to include pyrogenic biocarbon.
And then the next year after it, there was just a lot of discussions over, well, how do we get started? What all should we be looking at? And not a whole lot of resolutions that result in open projects where the actual changes can be made. This was different. We had 11 resolutions that actually initiated work items. That means we're actually working towards finishing these documents.
They're all three-year projects almost by... It used to be a choice, you could do a two-year track or three-year track through ISO and now they're all just slated to be three-year tracks. That doesn't mean you can't finish it sooner, but it just makes sure that you've got plenty of time and that your project doesn't time out inadvertently. Because that can happen, you know, you get started and don't bring it to the finish line fast enough, your project will time out, then you have to start over.
But in this case, they're all started and we seem to have a real head of steam for people engaging on these and it just means that we gotta start, so we're on track to finish, hopefully, within the three years, no more, and hopefully, a lot of them will finish much sooner. But that's the biggest outcome, just actual action in getting these methods under review and, hopefully, written and published.
Hannah: Yes. I think that is all we have time for for today. Thank you so much for coming on and discussing everything that you managed to achieve and put towards the future in Berlin at the end of June. And I very much look forward to our next chat, where I'm sure we will discuss how this sort of segment in the improving of the standards has gone.
Chris: Excellent. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. And again, it was so timely to do this so quickly after the close of those Berlin meetings. So thank you so much.
Hannah: Thank you. Stay tuned for the next edition of the Argus "Biomass Beat" podcast. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about this topic and other factors driving the biomass industry, follow all our coverage in Argus "Biomass Markets Report" and visit us at argusmedia.com.
