Carbon Management

Manufacturing, scaling, and field-deployment of novel proximal sensors to measure soil health

THE PROBLEM

Traditional soil lab analysis that underpins carbon markets has a problem; it’s expensive. Fields aren’t sampled frequently or at the density needed to provide accurate, full field results. Currently only 20% of US farmland is tested and even that is only tested every 3-5 years. Lab analysis is slow, can involve harmful and toxic chemicals, and often doesn’t measure carbon sub-pools, required to estimate permanence or sequestration. Miraterra estimates the existing market for soil testing in North America at 12 million samples a year. At $12.00 per sample, this is a $144M market annually.

THE SOLUTION

Miraterra introduces a completely new way to look at soil. The project will advance revolutionary innovation in Raman spectroscopy – Miraterra’s novel sensor.

Miraterra’s sensor technology reduces operational costs of soil carbon measurement, with a sensor that unlocks unprecedented fast and affordable complex materials analysis for soil testing labs.

Its Raman sensors provide near instantaneous measurement of soil pH, soil organic carbon, organic matter %, and importantly, carbon contained in subpools of organic matter (i.e. particulate organic matter (POM) and mineral associated organic matter (MAOM)). This technology is fast, provides scans at approximately one-third the cost of conventional sampling, eliminates the need for toxic chemicals in conventional soil carbon sampling, and will be deployable in-field. The Raman sensor is part of a suite of Carbon MMV products being developed at Miraterra.

PROJECT STATUS
Active
PROJECT CATEGORY
Carbon Management
FUNDING RECIPIENT
Miraterra
CICE FUNDING AMOUNT
$1,000,000
PROJECT VALUE
$6,400,000
  • “We are excited to work with CICE on the Manufacturing, Scaling, and Field-Deployment of Novel Proximal Sensors to Measure Soil Health project with the potential to revolutionize soil carbon MRV. We are manufacturing the first prototypes of our novel sensor in-house, right here in BC. With $1 million from CICE and a proposed total project cost of $6.4M, we can advance our sensor development and get the technology into the hands of customers, transforming soil carbon MRV.”
    Travis Good, Chief Technology Officer VISIT MIRATERRA