Biochar Soil Carbon Sequestration

Biochar — biomass heated without oxygen (pyrolysis) and returned to soil — is one of the few carbon-removal pathways already deployed at field scale, because turning organic matter into a charcoal-like solid slows its decomposition from years to centuries. This simulator runs two identical soil columns side by side, feeding them the same annual carbon input: one column receives pyrolyzed biochar, the other receives the same biomass left untreated. Both pools decay under real first-order kinetics with a temperature-dependent rate constant, so you can watch the stable biochar column keep accumulating carbon for a lifetime while the untreated column plateaus at a much lower steady state. Adjust pyrolysis temperature to trade biochar yield for long-term stability, change the annual feedstock rate, or warm the soil to see how climate itself affects the size of this carbon sink.