Sources
Atmospheric CO₂, light, water and prepared nutrients enter a cultivated biological environment. Symbiotic nitrogen fixation supports growth.
NEERVANA NETZERO / THE TECHNOLOGY
The AzoNian
Process.
A living system. Six climate pathways.
An architecture shaped by the Sun.
The science beneath The Eocene Project ↓
01 / AN EXPERIMENT IN SCALE
A brief prologue
Nature knows how to capture.
We are learning how to orchestrate.
This is not the story of one tower or one cultivation bed. It is the architecture of a biological process: inputs, growth, harvesting, transformed materials and the climate effects that may follow. The physical embodiments come later. First, understand the cycle.
Act I / The mechanism
Where every flow has a purpose
The anatomy
of a cycle.
A climate process is not defined by what it grows. It is defined by what enters, what leaves — and what happens next.
AZONIAN / SYSTEMS ATLAS
00 / THE COMPLETE SYSTEM
Not a single reaction.
A network.
The AzoNian Process connects biological cultivation to inputs, harvested material, circular nutrient flows and multiple possible climate outcomes. Follow the moving lines: the system is more than the sum of its components.
01 / THE SOURCES
Air. Water.
Sunlight. Nutrients.
Atmospheric carbon becomes biomass through photosynthesis. Nitrogen-fixing symbionts support growth. Water provides the living medium; carefully prepared organic nutrients replenish other requirements.
02 / THE ENGINE
A living
cultivation loop.
Controlled growth is followed by selective harvesting. Residual biomass remains to regenerate the productive surface. Water circulation and environmental management maintain the conditions required by the fern.
03 / THE MATERIAL
The harvest
is a beginning.
The biomass does not disappear once it leaves the cultivation tank. It becomes a material stream with distinct possible uses — and a distinct carbon fate for each use.
04 / THE PRIORITY ROUTE
Biomass
becomes soil.
The patent's investigated route is biofertiliser and compost. Suitable downstream agricultural use may replace a portion of synthetic fertiliser and support soil amendment or landscape restoration.
05 / THE ALTERNATIVES
One harvest.
Different destinies.
Animal feed and biofuel are alternative biomass uses. Their carbon is often returned to the active carbon cycle: the climate case here generally lies in substitution benefits, not automatically in durable sequestration.
06 / THE SYSTEM ACCOUNT
Six pathways.
Different evidence.
Construction carbon, waste diversion, biological fixation, fertiliser substitution, field emissions and restored landscapes. Each must be tested against its own boundary and counterfactual.
Enter the six pathways ↗SWIPE THE DIAGRAM HORIZONTALLY TO EXPLORE ↔
Cultivation
Biomass grows, is selectively harvested and regenerates under managed conditions.
Transformation
Harvested Azolla may become biofertiliser or follow alternative end-use routes, such as animal feed or biofuel.
Consequences
The resulting changes in manufacturing, disposal, soil and land-use outcomes need separate scientific accounting.
Chapter 02 / THE LIVING ENGINE
A biological
surface that
renews itself.
Azolla fixes atmospheric carbon into new biomass as it grows. Its nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterial symbiosis is valuable — but not a substitute for managing phosphorus, water chemistry, temperature, shade or contamination.
Growth · harvest · regrowth
The culture is not consumed by one harvest. Selected mature biomass leaves; the remaining mat provides the beginning of the next growth cycle.
Scientific nuance: biomass productivity, harvest yield and net atmospheric removal are different measurements.
Chapter 03 / THE CULTIVATION PROTOCOL
An ecology
of control.
The patent goes far beyond growing a water fern. It specifies initial inoculation, nutrient preparation, pH and dissolved-solid monitoring, water movement, sediment management, acclimatisation, careful frond agitation and harvesting according to bedding density.
The proposed nutrient route uses aerobically decomposed ripe banana peels, taking advantage of the fern's nitrogen-fixing symbiosis while supplying other nutrients. These are described operating methods, not a claim that the system requires no inputs or no energy.
PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY · EARLY CULTIVATION WORK
01
PREPARE
Water, soil micronutrients, organic nutrient solution.
02
STABILISE
Water chemistry, shade, circulation and acclimatisation.
03
GROW
Monitor productive surface coverage and plant health.
04
HARVEST
Remove mature biomass while retaining regrowth potential.
A crucial distinction
Circularity is a material property.
Permanence is a carbon property.
Materials
Inputs
Water, nutrients, structural materials and energy have associated origins and impacts.
Biology
Harvest
Plant growth moves atmospheric carbon into organic material that can be directly measured.
Climate accounting
Fate
Each downstream use determines whether carbon persists, returns to air or displaces another source of emissions.
Act II / The consequences
The six-level climate pathway · L01—L30
Six pathways.
One planet.
Carbon can be fixed. Carbon can be stored. Emissions can be avoided. The questions — and the evidence — are different.
The source specification groups six mechanisms across Levels 0–3. They are six climate pathways, not six physical storeys or six automatically certifiable removal credits.
PATHWAY 01 / L01 / MATERIAL STORAGE
Carbon in the
structure.
Plant-based structural materials such as properly sourced bamboo hold biogenic carbon during their service life. Where the actual design uses such materials, a climate assessment must account for sourcing, treatment, transport, fabrication, replacement and end of life.
Scientific basisBiogenic carbon storage and potential material substitution are supported in the literature, but benefits are design- and lifecycle-dependent. The patent's embodiment specifies bamboo; other physical prototypes may use different materials.
The first question is not how fast it grows.
For how long will the construction material retain its carbon — and what did its production emit?
TYPE · STORED BIOGENIC CARBON / LIFE-CYCLE COMPARISONPATHWAY 02 / L02 / AVOIDED EMISSIONS
The waste
that took another path.
Organic waste can release methane when it decomposes anaerobically in landfill conditions. Diverting appropriate streams into prepared cultivation nutrients could avoid part of that baseline emission — subject to the actual alternative treatment, processing and transport.
The baseline mattersAvoided emissions exist only relative to a credible disposal scenario. Waste already being composted aerobically or otherwise recovered cannot automatically be assigned landfill methane savings.
Two futures for the same material
Conceptual alternatives. No fixed avoidance factor is assumed.
PATHWAY 03 / L10 / BIOLOGICAL FIXATION
Carbon
becomes life.
Through photosynthesis, Azolla incorporates carbon derived from atmospheric CO₂ into new biomass. A repeated growth–harvest–regrowth cycle creates a recurring stream of captured biomass carbon, provided productivity is maintained.
The physical measurementDrain and weigh the harvested material; establish dry matter and carbon content; calculate the mass of CO₂ corresponding to biomass carbon. This is gross biological fixation — not, on its own, net durable removal.
The gross biomass ledger
L10
CO₂ from the atmosphere → carbon in dry matter
CO₂ fixed = dry biomass × carbon fraction × 44/12
Converting atomic carbon mass to molecular CO₂ mass. Site-specific biomass composition must be established empirically.
The mathematics beneath the harvest
A measurement,
not a metaphor.
The earlier Neervana research methodology used a dry-to-fresh mass ratio of 0.07 and an assumed dry-biomass carbon content of 42%. Under those study-specific assumptions, one kilogram of fresh harvested biomass contains carbon corresponding to approximately 0.108 kilograms of CO₂.
1 kg fresh → 0.108 kg CO₂
1 × 0.07 (dry fraction) × 0.42 (carbon fraction) × 44/12 (molar-mass ratio). An estimate of gross fixed carbon, not durable CDR.
The source specification uses a working productivity model of 71.36 kg fresh biomass/m²/year, corresponding to about 7.7 kg CO₂/m²/year under those same assumptions. This is a modelled reference value, not a universal tower performance result.
Illustrative biological growth curve, not a fitted experimental time series. The research describes an early exponential regime and a later growth regime approaching standing-crop conditions.
EARLIER PROJECT RESEARCH VISUALISATION · HISTORICAL SOURCE MATERIAL
PATHWAY 04 / L21 / AVOIDED MANUFACTURING
The fertiliser
that need not be made.
Conventional nitrogen fertilisers require industrial manufacture. Appropriate application of Azolla-derived biofertiliser may substitute a portion of their nutrient function, avoiding some associated production emissions.
A comparison must be agronomically validReplacement rates must depend on plant-available nutrients, release timing, crop response, additional field inputs and actual farmer practice. Equal fresh mass does not imply equal fertiliser function.
Two production chains / one agronomic function
Avoided emissions are measured against what genuinely changes — not against an assumed tonne-for-tonne replacement.
TYPE · COUNTERFACTUAL LIFE-CYCLE EMISSIONSPATHWAY 05 / L22 / FIELD GHG OUTCOMES
The field
has its own chemistry.
Once biomass or fertiliser enters agricultural soil, microbial processes can generate or consume greenhouse gases. Changes in synthetic nitrogen inputs, water management and organic-carbon additions can influence N₂O and CH₄ emissions.
The outcome is not always a reduction. Published Azolla field trials report condition-dependent results, including cases of increased N₂O emissions. We should investigate this pathway, not declare a universal outcome.
More nitrogen does not mean less emissions
Diagram denotes possible fluxes, not predicted reductions.
PATHWAY 06 / L30 / LAND CARBON STOCKS
The land
remembers.
Suitable organic amendments may improve a degraded landscape's ability to support vegetation and retain organic matter. Where restoration produces additional carbon stocks, the change can potentially be quantified in biomass and soils.
Additionality, the baseline, persistence, leakage and monitoring matter. A visibly greener landscape is not, by itself, a measured increase in durable carbon storage.
The question extends across time
ILLUSTRATIVE LANDSCAPE · NOT EVIDENCE OF A SPECIFIC PROJECT RESTORATION OUTCOME
The synthesis / one network, six accounts
The process is one.
The accounting is not.
Not every kilogram of biomass carbon is stored forever. Not every substituted input guarantees a reduction. Each pathway has a different mechanism, time horizon and evidentiary burden.
L01
Material carbon
How long is the carbon held in construction?
L02
Waste baseline
What emissions would the waste have generated otherwise?
L10
Gross fixation
How much biomass carbon was actually produced?
L21
Manufacturing substitution
What synthetic fertiliser production was genuinely displaced?
L22
Field fluxes
Did downstream CH₄ and N₂O emissions change?
L30
Land carbon stocks
Was additional carbon stored, and for how long?
These pathways are not automatically additive carbon-removal credits. Any full-life-cycle result must handle shared baselines, counterfactuals, overlapping effects, energy and materials, and carbon fate.
Between possibility and proof
How would we
know?
Harvest logs, calibrated mass measurements, dry-matter samples, carbon analysis and downstream records form the starting point. Lifecycle assessment and credible additionality and permanence methods determine what can ultimately be reported as net climate impact.
The historical presentation envisaged a record-linked AzoNian MRV layer. We distinguish that vision from demonstrated instrumentation, independent verification and issued credits.
A chain of evidence
01
MEASURE
Harvest mass, productive area and carbon fraction.
02
TRACE
Origin, timing, transport and biomass destination.
03
COMPARE
Baseline emissions and actual downstream outcomes.
04
VERIFY
Lifecycle, uncertainty, durability and independent audit.
Act III / The invention
The physical limit
The geometry
of the Sun.
Biology occupies surface. Surface occupies land. Unless geometry can make the same ground carry more life.
Chapter 01 / the constraint
The difficulty
was never only growth.
It was area.
A biological system depends on productive photosynthetic surface. Horizontal expansion increases land demand. The patented approach asks a different question: can multiple cultivated surfaces share a compact footprint while retaining suitable environmental conditions?
FROM GROUND TO GROWTH SURFACE
One surface.
One footprint.
A single cultivation plane has a direct relationship between footprint and active surface area.
Diagram demonstrates geometry, not a guaranteed net productivity multiplier. Lighting, spacing, access and maintenance constrain useful growing area.
FOOTPRINT ≠ EFFECTIVE CULTIVATION AREA
Chapter 02 / the sun's changing position
Stacking is easy.
Preserving the conditions for life is not.
One cultivated level casts shadow upon another. The amount, direction and duration of that shadow change with solar position. Azolla also benefits from moderated illumination and an appropriate thermal environment — not necessarily the greatest possible exposure to unfiltered sunlight.
The invention uses passive solar geometry to relate inter-level spacing to the breadth of the meta-structure and the solar zenith angle at the chosen location.
SCHEMATIC · EXPLANATORY SOLAR PATHS, NOT A SITE-SPECIFIC SHADING SIMULATION
Chapter 03 / passive solar mathematics
A geometry
derived from latitude.
The complete specification expresses the local solar zenith angle using latitude (φ), declination (δ) and hour angle (ω), and then relates a selected zenith-angle condition to structural breadth W and vertical inter-level spacing H.
H ≥ W tan θz,max
Relationship stated in patent paragraph [0029]. In the limiting case the patent writes H = W tan θz,max.
THE ACTUAL SOLAR POSITION EQUATION
θz = cos−1[ cos φ cos δ cos ω
+ sin φ sin δ ]
+ sin φ sin δ ]
φ
LATITUDE
The site's position north or south of the equator.
δ
DECLINATION
The seasonally changing angle of the Sun relative to the equator.
ω
HOUR ANGLE
The changing position of the Sun during the day.
θ
ZENITH ANGLE
Angle between the local vertical and the Sun's direction.
Engineering qualification: the patent's maximum-angle condition must be interpreted for a defined design solar window and structure orientation; angles near the horizon cannot simply be used as unrestricted universal maxima. No site-specific tower dimension is calculated on this page.
Chapter 04 / the disclosed meta-structure
Not a pile
of trays.
An integrated system.
The patent describes multiple equidistant levels accommodating paired carbon capture tanks, vertical and horizontal overflow pipes, an access separation and a controlled growth environment. It also describes shaded façades and electrically powered operational components.
The patented example is a technical embodiment, not a specification of every eventual Neervana product. The architectural configurations under development belong on the separate Our Products page.
PROJECT ARCHIVE · EARLY ENGINEERING CONCEPT
REPRODUCED TECHNICAL DRAWING FROM THE SUPPLIED COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
Chapter 05 / water circulation
A connected
hydraulic circuit.
The patent's four-level example connects paired tanks horizontally and neighbouring levels vertically, using the water-flow initiator to return water from the lowest level to the uppermost. It describes the exact path: CCT11 → CCT41 → CCT42 → CCT32 → CCT31 → CCT21 → CCT22 → CCT12 → CCT11.
Water movement, aeration and periodic circulation can help regulate conditions; pumps and aerators still have energy demand, which must be counted in the lifecycle assessment.
SCHEMATIC OF THE PATENT'S PAIRED-TANK HYDRAULIC CIRCUIT · NOT A CONSTRUCTION DRAWING
Chapter 06 / the microclimate
Passive shape.
Active stewardship.
The patent describes shading orientations, adjustable façade coverage, sensors for air and water temperature and pH, and a controller that can operate pumps, fans, aerators and sprinklers. It also discloses photovoltaic power for DC loads.
These components do different jobs. Passive solar layout shapes incoming radiation; shading modulates exposure; active systems respond to conditions inside the cultivation environment.
Environmental conditions / response
☼
SOLAR GEOMETRY
Spacing and orientation respond to sun position.
∿
WATER SYSTEMS
Circulation, aeration and solution management.
°
SENSING
Air and water temperature, humidity and pH.
↺
CONTROL
Scheduled or sensor-informed operational responses.
These are features disclosed in the published application, not a claim that every product embodiment incorporates each component or that all automated functions have been independently validated.
The original technology / its present embodiments
One principle.
Many possible forms.
An indoor stacked unit, an outdoor shelf, a wall-integrated growing surface and a monumental Climate Tower need not look alike. Their common questions remain: usable growing surface, solar access, water management, biological productivity, harvest logistics and accounting.
Here, we have explained the process and the patent's disclosed system. The next page will explore how those principles may manifest as products.
Return to the central idea ↓
ACTUAL EARLY CULTIVATION STRUCTURE · PROJECT PHOTOGRAPHY
The photograph shows historical experimentation, not a representation of the final approved Climate Tower architecture.
Epilogue / By design
Nature supplied
the mechanism.
Science makes
it inspectable.
Engineering makes
it repeatable.
The AzoNian Process is an attempt to turn the familiar physics of photosynthesis into an organised, measurable and potentially scalable climate intervention.
THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD
Sources &
methods.
This page is grounded in the AzoNian patent complete specification, accompanying drawings, the Climate Investment Challenge process schematic, the TERI SAS proposal, and selected peer-reviewed and institutional sources. Hyperlinks open the public original source.
Evidence language is deliberately conditional where work remains modelled, proposed or unverified. Historical photographs are archival project material; conceptual diagrams are not engineering drawings or proofs of deployment.
WO2024241342A1 · System for enabling artificial cultivation of Azolla and a method thereof PUBLISHED PATENT APPLICATION · TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION & CLAIMSBrouwer et al. (2018). Growing Azolla to produce sustainable protein feed JOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE · GROWTH / N FIXATIONHamdan & Houri (2022). CO₂ sequestration by propagation of the fast-growing Azolla spp. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH · REVIEW / MODELLINGBamboo construction materials: Carbon storage and potential to reduce associated CO₂ emissions SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT · BIOGENIC CONSTRUCTION CARBONUS EPA. Quantifying methane emissions from landfilled food waste (2023) INSTITUTIONAL REPORT · ORGANIC WASTE BASELINESShi et al. (2020). Evaluation of industrial urea energy consumption based on life-cycle assessment SUSTAINABILITY · FERTILISER MANUFACTUREBocchi & Malgioglio (2010). Azolla–Anabaena as a biofertilizer for rice paddy fields INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRONOMY · AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONInfluence of Azolla incorporation and/or dual cropping on CH₄ and N₂O emission from a paddy field SOIL SCIENCE AND PLANT NUTRITION · MIXED FIELD RESULTSIPCC (2019 Refinement). Volume 4: Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use GHG ACCOUNTING · MANAGED SOILS & LAND CARBON