FLOYD, Va. (AP) — Bio is business in this bucolic community, where a high-tech biochar facility readies for production.

The wood-based biochar that Jack Wall and Jeff Wade are readying to cook is turned into such pure carbon, you could eat the stuff, Wall said. But there are better uses.

“This stuff is a sterile, pure product,” Wall said. “Of course, you can make biochar out of things other than wood, but we’re making ours exclusively out of wood because it’s a better product.”

Biochar is made by burning organic matter without oxygen. Computer-controlled kilns are used to maintain a natural process called pyrolysis, which is just the decomposing of materials by using heat.

At the site of SWVA Biochar, 30 specialized anaerobic kilns will burn away all the saps, lignin and other materials inside wood, after a few hours leaving just a black carbon husk as the end product.

“You’re getting rid of everything except the carbon structure,” Wall said. “It’s black and shiny, and that’s what you’re left with.”

Biochar has properties kind of like activated charcoal, but it is made through a very different process, he said. Wall, who founded the nearby Floyd EcoVillage, is partnered with a company in Colorado that developed a specialized process used to make high-quality biochar.

“We’re only using waste wood products. Wood that is not valuable for anything else, except maybe pulp for paper,” Wall said. “We can even process things like treated lumber, or railroad ties. Chemically treated things like that.”

The end product has all sorts of uses, from water filtration to soil fertilization, said Wade, whose family has farmed in Floyd for generations.

“We’re only scratching the surface,” Wade said. “I learn something new every day about what we can use it for.”

On farms in Floyd, biochar has been used to keep livestock water systems free of algae, he said. And biochar can absorb odor, so it works to mitigate stink when spread in stables.

“I have fed this to my sheep, and in the ruminate it basically binds up the bad bacteria, which allows your animal to get more of the nutrients out of its food,” Wade said. “A little bit is real good, but too much of it and you’ve got to trim their hooves all the time.”

Beyond the farm, biochar’s use for water filtration is a growing demand, Wall said. And studies suggest that biochar used as an additive in concrete can improve the building material’s strength.

“The concept of this stuff, it’s been around, but now it’s taking off, and that’s why we’re trying to get into this thing commercially, because the benefits are there,” Wall said. “But the reason we originally got into this is because we were talking about making biochar for a soil amendment.”

Wade said SWVA Biochar is applying for a fertilizer production enhancement grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The plan is to use about 25,000 tons of chicken manure per year, shipped from the Chesapeake Bay area, to mix with biochar and create fertilizer.

“If you put this biochar into the chicken litter, then it will absorb and stop the leaching of all these chemicals, and holds it into the soil,” Wade said. “In the soil is good, that’s where we want it. And it’ll bind to hold the ammonia, so some of the smells of the manure are reduced.”

Chicken litter runoff from poultry farms in eastern Virginia has been identified as a main cause of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. Wade said some chicken farms are interested in putting the biochar directly into their coops.

“If we can put it right into the bedding with the chickens, then when they take it out, it’s already inoculated, and now you’ve just a supercharged fertilizer,” Wade said. “Of course getting it out of the Chesapeake Bay is a plus, that’s good for the environment… It’s a win-win for everybody involved.”

The biochar chicken litter fertilizer aspect of business is part of an effort by the federal government to move away from industrial farming techniques, toward more sustainable, regenerative agriculture practices, Wall said.

“Which is not needing the chemical fertilizers, not using the pesticides and herbicides, because that kills the biology of the soil,” Wall said. “If you put biochar in soil, then your soil develops the capacity to retain water, to attract minerals, to provide a home for the microbial fungi, things that are really important for quality soil.”

It’s an issue that has become more pressing now, Wall said. An October study published by Virginia Tech said global agricultural growth is in steep decline, and efforts to expand sustainable agriculture are inadequate for a growing world population.

“This product would be good even if not for climate change,” Wall said. “But the whole thing gets really pushed because of trying to deal with climate change.”

And there is potential to use the biochar pyrolysis process to harness additional energy by capturing a byproduct called syngas, but that will have to wait. For now, SWVA Biochar is raring to get full-scale production underway, because it is a business, after all.

“We originally thought we’d be up and running about six months ago,” Wall said, adding that he plans to expand the business to additional locations. “When we get started, it’s a profitable business.”