Usefully described as harvesting value from agricultural and forest waste, Takachar is tackling alleviating climate change around the world by transforming massive amounts of waste biomass into marketable products. It is estimated that worldwide every year over a billion dollar's worth of crop and forest residues are burned in the open. Using a novel concept developed and patented by Takachar - called oxygen-lean torrefaction - small-scale, low-cost, portable equipment is employed to convert waste biomass into solid fuel, fertilizer, and other specialty chemicals. Put to use, engaging the Takachar's process could be a profitable way to make economic use of this biomass i.e. residues could have multi-billion dollar useful impact while also - not trivially - majorly reducing air pollution. Though having (to date) limited SBIR involvement, the firm has made good use of various other forms of federal grant funding - smaller amounts than SBIR but factoring to some $.5M
