Talk:Biochar

Soil Mid‑importance

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Climate change Mid‑importance

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Archive 1

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Biochar.org

Note #7 ("Slash and Char") points to a document archived from biochar.org. That paper doesn't name its authors; biochar.org is not to my knowledge a WP:RS; and the statement cited to it is handwavey and reserved. I intend to remove the statement and its citation. MrDemeanour (talk) 16:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Difference to charcoal?

I might be missing something, but what is the difference between "biochar" and charcoal? "Lightweight black residue, made of carbon and ashes, remaining after the pyrolysis of biomass" is exactly what charcoal is. The article doesn't seem to mention any difference, apart from the disambiguation notice at the top of the article, about it being "charcoal which goes into soil". This is not mentioned in the article explicitly. If that is indeed the case, the article could be much simplified by describing it as a use of charcoal for fertilisation, rather than a seemingly novel material. Inops (talk) 10:34, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possible contamination of biochar

Shouldn't we address the fact that biochar could possibly be contaminated, if the biomass from which it was produced was contaminated (with heavy metals or other toxic chemicals)? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 19:25, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV disputed for new section: Economic viability and scale

@Gleba01: Your addition to the Biochar article is partially factual but overstates uncertainty, cherry-picks one perspective, and makes several quantitative claims that are either misleading, poorly supported by the current literature, or framed in a way that invites undue pessimism relative to mainstream assessments. It also assigns some points to a “Nature Sustainability” correspondence that, as of now, is very brief and does not itself include all the detailed numerical assertions in the Wikipedia edit. ---- Paleorthid (talk) 19:06, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I propose rewriting the paragraph so that the ‘boom‑and‑bust’ concern is explicitly attributed to the recent surge and potential unsustainability of biochar‑related research activity described in the correspondence, rather than presented as a general claim about the economic viability or large‑scale deployment potential of biochar. -- Paleorthid (talk) 19:30, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]