Biochar Case Study: BIOSORRA

Our Case Studies series demonstrates real biochar projects around the world from IBI members who are making an impact. 

What if farm waste could be turned into a product that helps farmers and fights climate change at the same time?

Every year, millions of tonnes of farm waste across tropical Africa, Asia, and Latin America are burned or decomposed, releasing the carbon that had been stored in plants back into the atmosphere. Instead of wasting this material, it can be collected and converted into biochar, which permanently traps carbon that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere. 

Because tropical countries generate so much of this waste year-round, they have a massive opportunity to remove carbon from the air at scale. Biochar can play a role more efficiently than many expensive high-tech solutions.

In Kenya, a company called BIOSORRA detected this problem and, through a project called Project Hippo, centralizes agricultural residues and transforms them, using proprietary high technology,  into biochar — a carbon-rich material produced by heating organic matter in the absence of oxygen.

The Biochar: Production Process and Project Specs

The biochar production process, called pyrolysis, involves heating organic material at high temperatures, in the absence of oxygen. At BIOSORRA, their process utilizes temperatures between 550–700°C.

This process does two powerful things at once: it locks carbon into a stable form that can stay in the soil for > 1,000 years, and it produces a soil amendment that improves water retention, nutrient holding, and crop yields for smallholder farmers across Kenya.

Pyrolysis Temperature	550–700C
Final Biochar Particle Size	Fine Granules (1 mm – 5 mm)
Application Areas	Agriculture

Supported by science and R&D, BIOSORRA holds and has developed relevant IP in order to maximize agronomical and carbon sequestration performance of its biochar bora offering one of the most powerful biomass revalorization solutions in the region with a duality on climate mitigation and climate adaptation. The idea is simple, but powerful: what enters the process as waste and potential pollution exits as a useful product with centuries of carbon storage built in and one of the best affordable locally sourced, locally used agro-inputs farmers can access.

Over its first five years, Project Hippo is expected to remove approximately 33,125 tonnes of CO2 equivalent from the atmosphere. This is carbon that will remain locked in the soil for up to 1,000 years. And the benefits don’t stop. When biochar is added to farmland at a rate of 2 to 5 tonnes per hectare, it transforms the soil beneath it. 

The biochar from BIOSORRA’s projects is applied not only as a stand-alone soil conditioner, but increasingly through carefully designed blends with locally available organic nutrient sources. These formulations are developed through ongoing R&D and field-based case studies across the regions where BIOSORRA operates, ensuring that the application approach is both scientifically grounded and practical for smallholder farmers. By tailoring blends to local soil conditions, crop needs, cost constraints, and input availability, BIOSORRA is helping make biochar adoption more efficient, affordable, and scalable. In the field, this translates into improved water retention, stronger nutrient-holding capacity, reduced dependence on synthetic fertilizers, and higher crop resilience during dry spells. Ultimately, these benefits support increased yields and better farmer incomes, while advancing climate-positive agriculture.

Beyond the farms themselves, Project Hippo creates local jobs and builds what economists call a circular economy: a system in which nothing is wasted and every output feeds back into the community.

What makes BIOSORRA’s approach stand out is how rigorously it does the work. Project Hippo is certified under the European Biochar Certificate and ICROA standards, two of the most respected international frameworks for verifying biochar quality and carbon claims. 

It also operates in full compliance with Kenya’s environmental regulator, NEMA, following a complete Environmental Impact Assessment. Quality control runs through every stage of the operation: raw materials are checked at intake, production conditions are automatically monitored, finished biochar is tested in the laboratory, and every batch is tracked from the production site to the farm where it is applied. This is not an experimental idea with uncertain results — it is a verified, traceable, and high-quality system already delivering results on the ground.

BIOSORRA went from a pilot, an idea, to a real operational project having a massive impact on the planet. The company recently secured $3.5 million in funding, and was named a Student Award winner and a top 25 finalist for the 2023 XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition.

“Hardware iteration in a frontier biochar market is unavoidable, and budgeting time and capital for that in advance is better.” 

Ines Serra Baucells, CEO & Co-Founder, BIOSORRA

Challenges and Learnings 

Getting to this point wasn’t easy; they couldn’t just build a machine, flip a switch, and start changing the world.​ As any company does, they faced a bumpy road of setbacks to workshops and overcome. 

The biochar production technology itself had to be built through trial and error. Project Hippo went through three generations of pyrolysis equipment — each an improvement on the last, with trade-offs in throughput, energy efficiency, and real-world operability. What worked on paper did not always work in the field.  

Something for all biochar entrepreneurs to remember: hardware iteration is not a sign of failure, it is part of the process. The smarter move is to budget time and money for it upfront rather than be caught off guard. 

The raw materials brought their own complications. Agricultural residues are not uniform — different crops, regions, and seasons produce biomass with varying moisture levels, particle sizes, ash content, and chemical properties. Each new feedstock had to be tested, characterized, and matched to the right production conditions and end use.

This revealed something important: the science of biochar is as much about understanding the input as it is about perfecting the machine. Research and development is not a phase you complete before production begins. It runs alongside it, continuously.

The lesson is that in a price-sensitive market, production costs are not just a financial issue.  They are a strategic one that shapes everything from who you can sell to, to how fast you can grow.

“In jurisdictions where the rules are forming in real time, sitting at the table — through working groups like CRK, the Africa Biochar Platform, and CBEN — is faster and more reliable than waiting for clarity from outside.” 

Ines Serra Baucells, CEO & Founder, BIOSORRA

As BIOSORRA looks to the future of their company and Project Hippo, they’re considering four critical pillars to scale: 

• Long-term carbon credit buyers to secure predictable, foundational revenue.
• Robust field data to definitively prove long-term yield benefits to farmers.
• Financial and launch support to commercialize their next-generation biochar products.
• Active regulatory involvement to keep shaping East Africa’s evolving carbon policies.

The mission of any biochar production project is fundamentally simple: to prove you can transform volatile agricultural waste into a high-value product. 

BIOSORRA is delivering an affordable soil booster that protects smallholder crops while permanently locking carbon away to fight climate change. It is a highly strategic, best-of-both-worlds solution that directly links environmental action to local agricultural and economic prosperity.