The combined spectroscopy-microscopy approach revealed the accumulation of aromatic-carbon in discrete spots in the solid-phase of microaggregates and its co-localization with clay minerals for soil amended with raw residue or biochar. The co-localization of aromatic-C:polysaccharides-C was consistently reduced upon biochar application. These finding suggested that reduced C metabolism is an important mechanism for C stabilization in biochar-amended soils (Hernandez-Soriano "et al", 2016)  Students at Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey are developing supercapacitors that use electrodes made of biochar. A process developed by University of Florida researchers that removes phosphate from water, also yields methane gas usable as fuel and phosphate-laden carbon suitable for enriching soil. Researchers at the University of Auckland are also working on utilizing biochar in concrete applications to reduce carbon emissions during concrete production and to improve the strength considerably. It has also demonstrated that the biochar can be used as a suitable filler in polymer matrix. Recently, biochar-starch bio-composites were prepared and its nano-mechanical behaviours were investigated using advanced dynamic atomic force microscopy. If biomass is pyrolyzed to biochar and put back into the soil, rather than being completely burned, this may reduce carbon emissions. Potentially, the bioenergy industry might even be made to sequester net carbon. Pyrolysis might be cost-effective for a combination of sequestration and energy production when the cost of a ton reaches $37. Carbon credits could help to make implementation easier as most large biomass power producers are neither equipped to create biochar nor are financially motivated for making it (because implementing biochar production would leave less energy for power production). Current biochar projects make no significant impact on the overall global carbon budget, although expansion of this technique has been advocated as a geoengineering approach. In May 2009, the Biochar Fund, a small "social profit organization", received a grant from the Congo Basin Forest Fund for a project in Central Africa to simultaneously slow down deforestation, increase the food security of rural communities, provide renewable energy and sequester carbon. Though some farmers did report better maize crops, the project ended early without significant results and with promises to the farmers not kept. Application rates of appear to be required to produce significant improvements in plant yields. Biochar costs in developed countries vary from $300–7000/tonne, generally too high for the farmer/horticulturalist and prohibitive for low-input field crops.