CHAR Technologies is a Canadian cleantech company that uses proprietary high-temperature pyrolysis technology to convert woody biomass and organic waste into renewable fuels, biocarbon and environmental remediation products, supporting industrial decarbonization and waste reduction initiatives.
Did the company idea emerge organically out of your graduate research, or were you actively looking to build a commercial business from the outset?
It all came out of my grad studies in chemical engineering at the University of Toronto. It definitely wasn’t a linear path, as most research grad studies aren’t, but toward the end of the program, the only paper I had published was a techno-economic assessment of renewable energies in Ontario and Quebec. That research really supported the technical work we were doing and the idea that there was a real business opportunity there.
I left the University of Toronto and went into an entrepreneurship program at the University of Waterloo. As a plug for Canada and Ontario, there’s now a very strong entrepreneurial support ecosystem that wasn’t really there when I graduated from my technical degree. Canada is very good at supporting those early stages of building and starting a company.
The broader idea of turning waste into energy and industrial products has existed for years, yet relatively few companies have managed to scale it commercially. Why did earlier efforts fall short, and what did CHAR do differently?
What we did evolved far beyond my thesis. The thesis itself was very narrow — it focused on high-temperature pyrolysis of a waste product to make activated carbon, or a filter material for biogas from anaerobic digestion. Then we took a step back and asked, “What else can we do with high-temperature pyrolysis? What are the market opportunities?” It became very apparent that hard-to-abate industries like steelmaking and ferroalloy production, where there’s a reliance on physical carbon in the chemistry, represented a strong decarbonization opportunity. High-temperature pyrolysis also creates a very high-quality gas from the woody biomass materials we run, so we started exploring renewable natural gas as well.
Historically, companies looking at biocarbon to replace metallurgical coal often approached it as a single-product-stream business — either making biocarbon or turning waste into energy, but not maximizing the value of the input material. Others also tried to be too ambitious on the feedstock side, saying they could take unsorted household garbage and turn it into valuable products. In chemistry and chemical engineering, you need consistency. We’re specifically focused on woody biomass waste, which lets us control the inputs and create value from both the biocarbon and gas stream. The final piece is carbon pricing and incentive structures. In Ontario and Quebec, cap-and-trade systems and compliance markets help make our products economically competitive, which is also why Europe has become a strong export opportunity for us.
This is a pivotal period for CHAR, with projects coming online, new facilities being announced and expansion into the U.S. market underway. Strategically, what stage is the business at now?
In Canada and Europe, we’re building our own projects and producing biocarbon, selling locally to partners like ArcelorMittal and Elkem, or shipping to Europe. In the U.S., it’s more of a licensing and waste-management opportunity focused on PFAS — forever chemicals. Since around 2017, we’ve been working on processing biosolids, the dried material left from sewage sludge. Historically, companies could sell biosolid pellets as fertilizer because they contain nutrients, but they also contain PFAS, which is very difficult to eliminate. We’re now working with Synagro Technologies and the City of Baltimore on a demonstration plant showing how high-temperature pyrolysis can destroy PFAS in biosolids. We completed a successful initial trial and continue working with partners on the project. PFAS concerns transcend political divides — from heavily regulated Northeastern states to Texas ranchers suing over contamination concerns.
At the same time, we’re bringing Thorold online and starting biocarbon production for steelmaking. Both steelmaking and ferrosilicon production use electric arc furnaces and rely on solid carbon for the chemistry to happen, but they require different carbon specifications. The Quebec facility gives us two major advantages. One is the offtake agreement — 62,000 tons over five years — which demonstrates both market maturity and our ability to secure long-term industrial demand agreements, something cleantech projects often need for financing. The second advantage is that we’ve expanded our intellectual property capacity so we can produce different carbon products for different applications, broadening the market opportunity. The Saguenay facility also supports a more distributed production model: Thorold handles the full value chain, while Saguenay takes in biochar and turns it into dense biocarbon pellets, supporting expansion across Quebec projects.
Canada has strong early-stage innovation support, but many companies still look abroad once they reach commercialization. Why does that gap still exist?
There’s phenomenal support in Canada for innovative early-stage work out of academic institutions and for getting that first demonstration project built. But historically, there’s been a venture, private equity, or risk-capital deficit once companies move into scale-up mode.
We went public on the Toronto Venture Exchange because it’s one of the few sources of scale-up risk capital available here. Once you’re established and have a track record, larger pools of capital become available through pension funds and similar institutions, but there’s a gap in the middle. There are federal programs now trying to bridge that gap, but culturally, there’s still sometimes a conservative attitude toward taking that next risk step. For us, the junior public markets enabled us to scale, secure partnerships and investments, and then land long-term offtake agreements. It’s a recognized issue, but not something that will change overnight.
There seems to be a growing sense of confidence in Canada right now around economic security and major projects. Do you think the mood in the country is changing?
Canadians tend to be measured and methodical — we let the work speak for itself. But make no mistake, Canada is world-class at delivering nation-building projects. The mood is shifting, and I think you're going to see that quiet confidence become a lot more visible.
Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 about middle powers coming together, the push on major projects, and getting shovels in the ground is resonating throughout the country. The bullishness may always have been there, but now there’s more outward enthusiasm around the fact that Canada is building important projects and technologies.
There’s a real sense of momentum around getting projects built and putting Canada in a leadership role not just in innovation, but in deployment as well.
As you look for capital and partnerships, what’s the biggest misconception people still have about the business?
Often, it comes down to how reliant people think we are on government support. Government support has been critical in helping us accelerate timelines, get projects built and demonstrate commercial operability, but we’re absolutely not dependent on it long-term. We’re able to secure that support because there’s a longer-term vision behind it. It’s not about building one project that permanently requires government funding — it’s about demonstrating the technology so we can access private debt and funding for Projects 2, 3 and 4.
The markets are there, and we’re showing that demand exists for these products and projects to be profitable. There’s a narrative right now that there’s been a pullback on the environmental side of ESG, but we really don’t see that. The commitments to decarbonisation and greenhouse gas reduction are still there across the board — it’s just not dominating headlines in the same way anymore.
