ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,258,521, issued on March 25, was assigned to Applied Carbon Inc. (Houston).

"Catalytic conversion of carbonaceous feedstock material into a biochar product" was invented by Daniel Mulqueen (Charleston, S.C.) and Morgan Williams (Fruita, Colo.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems, methods and apparatus for the thermal conversion of carbonaceous feedstock material into biochar. The carbonaceous feedstock material may be harvested, preprocessed and pyrolyzed. An amount of carbonaceous feedstock material is received. An amount of a catalyst is applied to the carbonaceous feedstock material. The carbonaceous feedstock material and the appl...