UK-based pyrolysis technology company Onnu has launched a new era for biomass carbon removal with the rollout of its own proprietary pyrolysis technology, CarboFlow. Developed entirely in-house, CarboFlow brings to market a next-generation pyrolysis system designed to make biomass projects viable, scalable, and profitable, at a cost and speed that were previously out of reach for the industry.
Image Credit: Onnu
This milestone marks Onnu’s transformation from project developer to full technology provider, as it announces a landmark international partnership with Agrotech Bioenergy to convert agricultural residues in Malaysia into renewable energy, high-grade biochar, and verified carbon credits.
The collaboration represents a major advancement in sustainable biomass utilization and carbon removal across tropical agriculture. By deploying Onnu’s CarboFlow pyrolysis systems, previously underutilized plantation residues such as palm trunk, bamboo, and other agricultural by-products are now being converted into valuable outputs - driving circularity, renewable energy generation, and verifiable carbon sequestration.
Situated on plantations in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, the project began operations last week. The two CarboFlow units will process around 41,820 tonnes of wet biomass each year, producing 1,924 tonnes of biochar and generating 2,800 kW of renewable heat for plantation operations. It is expected to deliver 3,937 carbon credits annually, verified under the Puro.earth standard. The project has also been independently evaluated by leading carbon rating agency, BeZero, which assessed its overall design, implementation, and contribution to carbon removal.
“Over the past three years, we’ve assessed more than forty pyrolysis projects, both for our clients and for our own development, and in almost every case the economics simply didn’t add up,” said Giles Welch, CEO of Onnu. “The industry has been constrained by limited equipment choice, prohibitive costs, and long lead times, with machines taking up to eighteen months to deliver and typical project payback periods of seven years.
“That experience led us to create a pyrolysis solution that previously didn’t exist. CarboFlow is engineered for scalability and commercial viability: it’s around two-thirds the price of traditional systems, can be manufactured 4.5 times faster in just four months, and achieves payback in as little as three years. We focused on the three critical bottlenecks of speed, process efficiency, and throughput - and we solved them. The result is a pyrolysis system built for today’s market: faster, leaner, and designed to make biomass pyrolysis projects genuinely viable.”
Malaysia’s plantation sector generates large volumes of waste from empty fruit bunches and kernel shells to effluent and felled trunks. Traditionally, these materials decompose in the field for up to five years, releasing carbon dioxide and occupying valuable land. When Agrotech Bioenergy approached Onnu, a feasibility study showed that pyrolysis could deliver far greater environmental and commercial benefits than composting.
By processing agricultural residues through CarboFlow, carbon can be permanently locked away while generating renewable heat and industrial-grade biochar.
This technology delivers three key outcomes:
- Carbon Removal & Biochar – Carbon is permanently sequestered in biochar, reducing fertilizer use, improving soil health, and providing a valuable commercial product for agricultural and industrial markets.
- Renewable Energy – The syngas generated is captured and combusted to provide renewable heat for plantation operations and green electricity for local demand.
- Green Fuel for Industry – The heat from pyrolysis is used to power a torrefaction process producing black pellets, a like-for-like substitute for coal, helping to decarbonize power generation in Asia.
With Onnu’s technology, landowners can shift from a linear model of waste disposal to a fully circular, value-generating system, where every output contributes to soil regeneration, energy independence, and verified carbon removal.
“Agrotech Bioenergy’s adoption of CarboFlow demonstrates how innovative pyrolysis systems can unlock genuine climate value from agricultural residues,” said Giles Welch of Onnu. “It shows that large-scale plantations can move beyond sustainability targets to become active participants in global decarbonization.”
“Conventional plantation operations produce vast volumes of biomass residues that typically decompose over several years, releasing significant CO2 emissions,” added Prashant Patel, Director of Agrotech Bioenergy. “By deploying Onnu’s pyrolysis system, we’ve established a closed-loop carbon pathway where agricultural waste is converted into stable biochar, renewable heat, and verified carbon credits. This replaces linear decay with permanent carbon storage and energy generation, while co-products such as biochar and black pellets create measurable environmental and commercial value. It proves that large-scale plantation systems can deliver high-integrity carbon removals alongside sustainable profitability.”
“We are working at a larger scale than most pyrolysis installations and therefore require equipment with higher throughput and faster manufacturing times than were available on the market. With its CarboFlow pyrolysis unit, Onnu has addressed these challenges - reducing the number of systems needed to deliver large-scale projects and accelerating deployment so that operations become productive sooner, with a stronger return on investment.”
Agrotech Bioenergy plans to roll out Onnu’s CarboFlow technology across multiple large-scale plantations in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia over the next five years, targeting the sequestration of 360,000 tonnes of CO2e each year and the production of 180,000 tonnes of biochar through the utilization of 900,000 tonnes of agricultural waste that currently serves no purpose. The energy generated by the pyrolysis process will power a torrefaction plant to manufacture black pellets, displacing coal in power generation and cutting global carbon emissions by a further 1.3 million tonnes of CO2e annually.