The metallurgical sector is one of the hardest to decarbonise—and yet one of the most crucial for Europe's climate-neutral future. While electrification and hydrogen will lead much of the transition, carbon remains indispensable in key industrial processes such as ore reduction and alloy production.
Biochar, a carbon-rich material derived from biomass residues, is the only net-zero and readily available alternative to fossil coal and coke. According to the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED), biochar qualifies as a renewable carbon source. It is recognised in the EU Critical Raw Materials Act as a strategic lever for industrial resilience and decarbonisation.
Biochar is both the first step and the last step in defossilising the metallurgical sector:
• The First Step: Biochar is available, deployable, and scalable now, offering an immediate, cost-effective solution to reduce fossil carbon use.
• The Last Step: Certain processes will always require carbon. Biochar is the only sustainable source compatible with a net-zero future.
Unlike green hydrogen infrastructure or carbon capture systems, biochar is ready now. It can be integrated into existing industrial furnaces with minimal changes. In many processes, it can fully or partially replace fossil coal or coke, achieving measurable carbon reductions immediately.
Biochar offers the lowest-cost path to immediate industrial decarbonisation:
• No need to wait for new infrastructure.
• No need for expensive retrofitting in many metallurgical setups.
• No fuel switching required—biochar behaves similarly to fossil carbon in certain industrial processes and can show superior qualities in others.
Biochar production is decentralised and circular:
• It is produced from residual biomass—mainly agricultural and forestry by-products—through pyrolysis, a mature and clean technology.
• The process co-generates renewable heat and electricity
• The resulting solid carbon—biochar—is transported to industrial users as a clean, renewable carbon carrier.
This model creates economic opportunities in rural areas, strengthens energy and material resilience, and reduces dependency on fossil imports.
In the production of metals such as steel, silicon, manganese, ferroalloys, and others, carbon plays a non-substitutable chemical role. It is required for:
• Reduction of metal ores (e.g., iron oxide to metallic iron).
• Carburisation to modify the properties of metals.
• Maintaining reductive atmospheres during high-temperature processes.
Even in an energy system powered entirely by renewables and green hydrogen, these industrial processes will still require carbon. That carbon must come from a sustainable and climate-neutral source—biochar.
Biochar offers a practical, affordable, and sustainable path forward. It is the first step because it can be implemented immediately with existing technology. And it is the last step because carbon will always be needed in metallurgy—and biochar is the only non-fossil, renewable carbon that meets that demand.
While Europe is working on a range of approaches and technologies to fully defossilise metallurgy, Biochar is a solution ready today—one that supports industry, climate, and local economies.
