Sithandekile Nyathi confidently hoists herself into the compact loader, lowers the metal caging around the vehicle and drives towards large mounds of wood timber chips.
The chips go up a conveyor belt into a converter, where they are heated and turned into a type of “biochar” called activated carbon, a charcoal that stores carbon and could help cut planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions.
“I used to be a maid. I never thought I would work in an industry that helps lives and the environment,” said Nyathi, a controller at the plant in Brakpan owned by Adsorb, a local manufacturer of activated carbon.
South Africa is a coal-rich country but has been the poster child for international efforts to shift towards cleaner energy and industries. However, funding challenges, high unemployment rates and political divides have stalled the efforts, raising questions about how the transition should happen.
Darryl Phipps, a chemical engineer and manager of the Adsorb plant where Nyathi works, said he thinks the plant east of Johannesburg is the first of its kind globally.
It uses self-sustaining energy, the heat in the converter, to turn wood chips directly into activated charcoal or steam-activated biochar, which allows for greater binding of organic molecules to its surface and has clean flue gas as its only byproduct.
Some proponents see the biochar sector as one answer to job creation and carbon capture, but the young industry is struggling with a lack of South African data and funding support, experts said.
Globally, the industry was valued at $600m (R10.65bn) in 2023, up 97% from 2021, according to the International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
Biochar and activated carbon have been praised by some researchers, farmers and industry experts for improving soil quality and water retention, absorbing toxins and capturing carbon.
When used as a fertiliser, biochar improves water holding capacity which helps plants survive drought conditions, according to research publisher Frontiers.
Initial studies into South Africa's agricultural sector have showed biochar improved maize yield and soil health, but researchers called for further long-term research, according to the University of Venda.
The department of forestry, fisheries and the environment did not respond to requests for comment on the size and prospects for the country's biochar sector. However, workers such as Nyathi are hopeful.
“If the company grows, I grow with the company,” she said.
High unemployment rates, funding cuts and size of the coal industry have slowed down the move towards clean energy and green jobs.
Phipps said Adsorb's converter could be replicable in other parts of South Africa and the world.
Adsorb uses wood chips from pallet repair centres that originally come from responsibly managed forests.
When the wood is heated at 1,000ºC, the gas generated first makes biochar and then activated charcoal.
Activated charcoal has more adsorption capacity than biochar and can also be used as an industrial pollutant removal, according to the academic journal Science of The Total Environment.
The gas generated is incinerated to create clean thermal energy and Adsorb is looking to recover this into electricity, said Phipps.
Adsorb captured about 750 tonnes of CO2 in 2024 and supplies activated charcoal to fertiliser, animal feed and cosmetic industries, and has eyes on water treatment, mine rehabilitation and cleaning mercury out of coal gas.
“Processing centres could be established in areas where there were previously mines or coal plants,” said Phipps. “This could involve communities generating biomass and supplying it to the processing centres. If enough plants are rolled out it could eventually create jobs in the tens of thousands,” he estimated.
Despite the enthusiasm, experts said data on biochar is scarce and estimates on the size of the market in South Africa vary widely, potentially due to different classifications of what constitutes biochar.
Romain Pirard, an environmental economist at the School for Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University, said to his knowledge there is “no centralisation of information or any sort of policy specific to biochar”.
Finding willing customers is also a challenge for the promotion of biochar, said Phipps.
“Farmers are extremely cost-sensitive, and if there's anything that increases the cost, it damages the sales potential,” he said.
Pirard said subsidies to incentivise farmers to use biochar in place of chemical fertilisers, and using invasive alien trees as a form of biomass, could help biochar “take off”.
The department of environmental affairs, the predecessor to the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment, said in a 2015 report that “consideration could be given by government to subsidising” small biochar businesses. The department of forestry, fisheries and the environment did not immediately respond to the Thomson Reuters Foundation's request for a comment.
Despite showing potential as a green job creator, attempts to create a biochar association to centralise data and information on initiatives have not led anywhere, and the feasibility of the sector “remains to be demonstrated”, Pirard said.
However, Phipps is adamant they are on to something big, if more finance arrives.
He said: “From my children's perspective, I want to leave behind a legacy, something positive that gave back rather than extracted wealth from the world.”
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