LIBS technology to measure carbon in soil receives international certification

Used by NASA (North American Space Agency) in robots to explore soil information on Mars, the LIBS technique (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy or Optical Emission Spectroscopy with laser-induced plasma) has just received yet another international recognition, with a direct impact for Brazilian farmers.

Embrapa Instrumentação and the company Agrorobótica (both located in São Carlos – SP), which since 2016 have maintained a technical cooperation agreement for the use of technology in the evaluation of tropical soils, participated in a public consultation with Verra - a global reference in certification of carbon credits - which reviewed the entire certification methodology.

Four emerging technologies were approved by the certifier, which guarantees the origin of carbon credits in the voluntary market, through a global registration platform that takes care of the credits. Verra created the Voluntary Carbon Standards (VCS), which are a global reference in the generation of verifiable carbon units with high quality standards.

Measure, report and verify

“The choice of the LIBS technique, together with Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS), MIR (Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy) and VIS-NIR (Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy), from a scientific point of view, endorses the work that we have been developing for almost two decades and which resulted, in 2018, in the launch of the AGLIBS technology, during Agrishow, in Ribeirão Preto, whose patent we shared with Agrorobótica”, explains researcher Débora Milori, from Embrapa Instrumentação.

“This technological innovation allowed the large-scale measurement of soil carbon (C), texture (sand, silt and clay content) and pH quickly, economically and accurately, without generating waste. Furthermore, international certification can also boost the adoption of technology in new projects in one of the major corporate research topics, carbon”, adds the coordinator of the National Agrophotonics Laboratory (Lanaf).

“Our objective is to solve one of the main problems for developing carbon credit projects in agriculture, which is the MRV (measure, report, verify) of carbon stored in the soil, in an economically viable way”, comments Aida Magalhães, CTO of Agrorobótica , who was a postdoctoral fellow with Débora Milori at Embrapa.

billionaire market

And it was precisely to meet the global demand for carbon credits in Brazilian agriculture that Agrorobótica launched, in 2022, the AI ​​platform AGLIBS, which allows certifying the carbon of agricultural areas through the quantification of soil organic carbon stocks, resulting from adoption of sustainable management practices in the agricultural area.

The platform will also allow, simultaneously, to assess soil fertility and provide sustainable agronomic recommendations with the aim of improving productivity and contributing to food security. “The generation and commercialization of carbon credits in internationally certified Brazilian agricultural areas should impact the country, both financially and environmentally”, assesses Débora Milori.

For Fábio Angelis, CEO of Agrorobótica, “the approval of LIBS at Verra opens up an immediate opportunity for Brazilian farmers to access the global voluntary carbon credit market, which in 2021 closed with an approximate value of US$ 2 billion”.

“In addition, it opens up the opportunity for Brazil to consolidate itself as the world’s largest carbon credit market by 2030, with an expected turnover of more than US$100 billion, with Embrapa technology helping to certify this carbon market”, he concludes. Angelis.