![\"Darell](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/media\/2025\/12\/IMG_6260-2048x1365-1-1024x683.jpg\")
CO2-Sync takes biomass and runs it through a pyrolysis process, generating three revenue streams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe first stream is carbon-based materials. Right now, we\u2019re using biochar and you\u2019ll see that we\u2019re developing other carbon-based materials. Second is renewable energy, and then the third is carbon credits that are sold on the open market,\u201d explained Huntsman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Utah, CO2-Sync uses beetle-killed forests as its biomass, which helps mitigate wildfire risk, turning an environmental threat into a climate solution. In other areas, different types of biomass are used, including rice husks in Thailand and camel dung in Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These trees are the feedstock for the pyrolysis, a process where the biomass is heated up to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit in the absence of oxygen. This extreme heat drives the volatiles out of the biomass, and the outcome produces biochar and hot gases, which are combusted and converted into thermal energy. One plant produces 500 kilowatts (kW) of gross energy, which equates to about 400 kW of net energy, and uses 11 gallons of water per minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a very, very clean process. If you go by a plant, you can\u2019t even tell that anything\u2019s actually running,\u201d said Huntsman, explaining that everything leftover is filtered and cleaned of all particulates. The noise pollution of a plant is only 60 decibels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biochar looks like black charcoal but is packed with carbon. The biochar produced at CO2-Sync is 92% carbon and has a lot of Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) surface area \u2014 400 square meters per gram. BET surface area is important because it means the product has better adsorption of nutrients or water, improved soil conditioning ability, greater microbial habitat in soil and increased carbon stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means that the carbon-rich material improves soil health, boosts water retention and stores carbon for centuries. Because of its alkaline nature, it can help balance pH in acidic soil, and it can also be used to filter impurities. Almost all of CO2-Sync\u2019s biochar is currently used for agriculture, but they are also working with golf courses in St. George due to its water retention abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBiochar will increase your water holding capacity by 50% and your water utilization by 40%,\u201d said Huntsman. \u201cWhat that means is you can get the same crop yield with 40% less water. Think of all the benefits of that, especially in dry climates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CO2-Sync has three plant options that they build. There is the CF250, which produces 2.05 million British thermal units (BTU) per hour, and a power barn, which is an CF250 plant housed in a barn structure to blend into the environment. The type of plant being built on Ridge Road is a CF1000, which produces 6.65 million BTUs per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unit 1 of the plant is up and running and the company has ordered unit two. On their 10-acre plot, they intend to build eight units total. Currently CO2-Sync orders units from Germany, but are looking into manufacturing in the U.S., and according to Huntsman, he is pushing for it to come from Carbon or Emery County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CO2-Sync does not intend to stop at just biochar, thermal energy and electricity. They have four phases of growth that they hope to accomplish. Along with biochar, the company is working on producing activated carbon, carbon black and graphene, which are all higher value products. On the energy front, CO2-Sync hopes to capture and use syngas, as well as improving district heating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe just don\u2019t do a great job of that in the U.S., and there\u2019s a lot that we can do. It\u2019s a much more efficient use of that energy than turning it into electricity,\u201d Huntsman said. He also said that the company hopes to get into energy storage with graphite batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the next five years, CO2-Sync plans to have 50 plants throughout the U.S. Each plant will harvest 25,000 tons of dead trees per year, which is about 15 to 35 acres, producing 5,600 tons of biochar and 7,500 megawatts of renewable electricity. 12,500 tons of carbon dioxide will be sequestered each year, and according to Huntsman, a plant\u2019s annual tax revenue will reach about $300,000 at a 20% rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CO2-Sync is an innovative company based in Heber City, Utah that is building a plant on Ridge Road, aiming to address five problems: forest management, soil turning to dirt, water scarcity, energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions. Darrell Huntsman, chief executive officer of CO2-Sync and Castle Dale native, spoke at the Carbon and Emery Collaborative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":171939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"In Utah, CO2-Sync uses beetle-killed forests as its biomass, in other areas, different types of biomass are used, including rice husks in Thailand and camel dung in Dubai","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12738,5842,13087,5627,13461],"supplier":[27385],"class_list":["post-171937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biochar","tag-biomass","tag-climate","tag-energy","tag-pyrolysis","supplier-co2-sync"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171937"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=171937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}