(Press-News.org) A new scientific review points to nanobiochar, an engineered carbon material derived from biomass, as a promising solution for some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. By shrinking conventional biochar to the nanoscale, researchers have created a material with dramatically increased surface area, reactivity, and environmental functionality, opening new possibilities for soil improvement, water treatment, and climate resilience.
Biochar has long been used to improve soil quality and capture carbon, but the new analysis shows that nanoscale versions can perform far more efficiently. The authors report that nanobiochar’s enhanced structure allows it to bind pollutants more effectively, retain nutrients in soil, and support beneficial microbial communities that promote plant growth.
“Nanobiochar represents a new generation of carbon-based environmental technologies,” said the study’s author. “By engineering biochar at the nanoscale, we can significantly expand its ability to improve soil health, reduce contamination, and even help restore degraded landscapes.”
In agricultural systems, nanobiochar shows strong potential to increase crop productivity while reducing fertilizer losses. The material can act as a slow-release nutrient carrier, helping plants access nitrogen and other essential elements over longer periods. This function could reduce nutrient runoff into waterways, a major driver of pollution and eutrophication worldwide.
Beyond agriculture, the review highlights nanobiochar’s effectiveness in environmental remediation. Its high density of reactive surface sites allows it to adsorb heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and other harmful pollutants from water and soil. Researchers also note that modified nanobiochar composites, including magnetic variants, may allow treated materials to be recovered and reused, improving the sustainability of water treatment technologies.
Perhaps most striking is the material’s potential role in ecosystem restoration. In dryland regions, where soil degradation and desertification threaten food security and biodiversity, nanobiochar may help stabilize soil surfaces and support the formation of biological soil crusts. These living soil layers play a key role in preventing erosion, retaining moisture, and capturing carbon. The authors suggest that nanobiochar could act as a protective carrier for beneficial microbes, improving their survival and accelerating ecosystem recovery.
“Drylands cover more than forty percent of the Earth’s land surface, yet restoration remains extremely difficult,” the author explained. “Nanobiochar may offer a new pathway to stabilize soils, support microbial life, and enhance long-term carbon storage in these vulnerable environments.”
Despite its promise, the study also emphasizes the need for responsible development. Producing nanobiochar can be energy intensive, and researchers must carefully evaluate its environmental impacts and long-term behavior in soils and water systems. The authors call for further research into scalable production methods, ecological safety, and field performance.
Overall, the review presents nanobiochar as a versatile platform technology that bridges nanotechnology, environmental engineering, and sustainable agriculture. With continued research and careful implementation, the material could contribute to more resilient food systems, cleaner water resources, and restored ecosystems in a changing climate.
The study underscores the growing importance of innovative carbon-based materials in addressing global sustainability challenges and highlights nanobiochar as a promising candidate for future environmental solutions.
===
Journal reference: Salem H. 2026. Nanobiochar as a multifunctional amendment for coupled water-soil-biota systems: applications in agricultural production, environmental remediation, and arid ecosystem restoration. Biochar X 2: e009 doi: 10.48130/bchax-0026-0008
https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/bchax-0026-0008
===
About the Journal:
Biochar X (e-ISSN: 3070-1686) is an open access, online-only journal aims to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries by providing a multidisciplinary platform for the exchange of cutting-edge research in both fundamental and applied aspects of biochar. The journal is dedicated to supporting the global biochar research community by offering an innovative, efficient, and professional outlet for sharing new findings and perspectives. Its core focus lies in the discovery of novel insights and the development of emerging applications in the rapidly growing field of biochar science.
Follow us on Facebook, X, and Bluesky.
END
Nanobiochar emerges as a next generation solution for cleaner water, healthier soils, and resilient ecosystems
2026-02-26
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study finds more parents saying ‘No’ to vitamin K, putting babies’ brains at risk
2026-02-26
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2026
Highlights:
A new review of research has found the number of parents refusing vitamin K injections for their newborns is on the rise.
Vitamin K is an essential vitamin that is naturally low in newborns. Vitamin K at birth is needed to help blood to clot. It is not a vaccine.
Babies who do not receive vitamin K at birth are at a higher risk of life-threatening brain bleeds and long-term disability.
While vitamin K refusal remains low, less than 1%, the review found rates of refusal in Minnesota ...
Scientists develop new gut health measure that tracks disease
2026-02-26
Scientists have identified a new way to distinguish healthy guts from diseased ones and track how some illnesses progress by measuring how gut bacteria interact with one another.
According to a study published in Science, a collaboration between scientists at Rutgers University, Universidad de Granada in Spain and Princeton University found that healthy and diseased gut microbiomes behave like two distinct ecological states, driven not by individual microbes but by how entire bacterial communities compete and cooperate.
“Instead ...
Rice gene discovery could cut fertiliser use while protecting yields
2026-02-26
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 19:00 GMT / 14:00 ET THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2026
Rice gene discovery could cut fertiliser use while protecting yields
Researchers from the University of Oxford, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) have finally identified the master regulator in plants that balances root and shoot growth when nutrients are limited. In field trials, rice plants with an improved version of the gene had yield increases of up to 24%. The breakthrough, published today (26 February) in the prestigious ...
Jumping ‘DNA parasites’ linked to early stages of tumour formation
2026-02-26
A study published today in the journal Science reveals how jumping fragments of human DNA, a type of genetic parasite, destabilise the cancer genome. Unstable genomes are a fertile playground for cancer evolution, giving malignant cells more opportunities to grow, adapt and evade treatment.
The researchers analysed genome sequences from tumours with unusually high activity of LINE-1 (L1) elements, fragments of DNA which copy themselves and paste that copy into other locations within the genome.
Previously thought ...
Ultra-sensitive CAR T cells provide potential strategy to treat solid tumors
2026-02-26
Though CAR T cells have been effective against certain blood cancers, they have not been for solid tumors. Now, a new form of highly sensitive CAR T cells aims to overcome one of the biggest barriers in solid tumor immunotherapies – the way solid tumors lack a single, widely shared surface target. By engineering an ultra-sensitive receptor capable of detecting even the smallest amounts of the protein CD70, researchers report they were able to eradicate kidney, ovarian, and pancreatic tumors in preclinical models. The findings provide a potential strategy to treat a broad range of solid tumors. ...
Early Neanderthal-Human interbreeding was strongly sex biased
2026-02-26
When Neanderthals and ancient modern humans interbred, the pairings were mostly between male Neanderthals and female humans. This finding helps explain why Neanderthal ancestry present in most humans is unevenly distributed. Anatomically modern humans carry low levels of Neanderthal ancestry, but it is not evenly shared. When the genomes of Neanderthals and modern humans are compared, striking gaps known as “Neanderthal deserts” are revealed. These are large stretches of DNA in modern humans where Neanderthal genetic contributions are unusually rare. Such deserts appear across several chromosomes and are especially prominent on the X chromosome. According to Alexander Platt and ...
North American bird declines are widespread and accelerating in agricultural hotspots
2026-02-26
North American bird populations are not only declining, but they’re also shrinking faster with each passing year – particularly in regions shaped by intensive agriculture, according to a new study. Centuries of human impacts, including land use change, agricultural intensification, overexploitation, and pollution, have drastically reshaped the natural world, leading to population declines for many wildlife species worldwide. Although these declines are widely recognized, whether these losses are speeding up year over year, as well as the factors driving this potential acceleration, remain poorly understood. ...
Researchers recommend strategies for improved genetic privacy legislation
2026-02-26
U.S. policymakers addressing the public’s concerns about how genetic information could be used, in different insurance-related contexts, should consider several guiding questions, say authors of a new Policy Forum. Comprehensive genetic testing for both consumer and clinical use has led to the rise of genetic privacy laws like the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which bars health insurers and employers from using genetic information. As that 2008 Act was limited to health insurance, however, numerous states have since enacted bans on the discriminatory use of genetic information by other kinds of insurance (life, long-term care, ...
How birds achieve sweet success
2026-02-26
Anyone who has seen a hummingbird poking her beak deep into a trumpet creeper blossom, or a honeyeater using its brush-tipped tongue to extract nectar from eucalyptus flowers, has witnessed something that from a human perspective is rather remarkable. Although many bird species avoid sugar-rich foods, others survive almost entirely on sugar-rich nectar or fruit, processing massive sugar loads without developing the diseases that such diets cause in people and other animals.
Groups including hummingbirds, sunbirds, ...
More sensitive cell therapy may be a HIT against solid cancers
2026-02-26
NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 26, 2026)--CAR T cell therapy has revolutionized the treatment of many blood cancers, but has shown little success against solid tumors, which account for over 85% of all cancers.
Columbia researchers have now found that a new type of cell therapy—HIT cells, a cousin to CAR T with enhanced sensitivity—overcomes a major obstacle to treating solid tumors with cell therapy and can completely eliminate kidney, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers in mice.
The research, conducted by investigators at the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy (CICET), was published Feb. 26 in the journal Science.
Michel Sadelain, director ...