From waste to reversing climate change: This is what we do at MOA

From wood waste to biochar and carbon-negative compounds: that’s the revolutionary process developed by Made of Air. We create materials that can replace traditional high emitters like fossil plastics and aluminum in the built environment and consumer goods.

Made of Air’s mission is to reverse climate change. To help that, we create carbon-negative compounds that can replace incumbent materials like fossil-based plastics and aluminum in the built environment and consumer goods. With these industries representing a significant portion of global emissions; substituting them will be crucial to meeting global climate goals. Carbon-negative may not be a familiar term as most companies currently focus only on going net-zero, usually by offsetting their emissions only. For us, going negative is the primary goal. Our materials lock in more carbon dioxide during their production than they release.

Biochar: the key to our process

The key ingredient of our compounds is biochar, a pyrolyzed biomass with very high carbon content. Biochar is traditionally used as a soil fertilizer, but our innovation has revolutionized the material’s potential, making it possible to create our thermoplastic compounds. This proprietary process takes the carbon removal potential of biochar and connects it to the scale of manufactured goods with a production volume relevant for the climate crisis.

Regional forestry industries provide us with our raw material, in the form of residual sawdust or wood chips, from which we produce the biochar. Tons of waste, typically incinerated to generate energy, landfilled or left behind to decompose, re-releases the CO2 sequestered by trees during their lifetime back into the atmosphere.

This is where we step in and break the natural cycle by taking this biomass and heat it to high temperatures in a low-oxygen environment: the key to converting that waste into elemental carbon. The CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere becomes permanently locked in the biochar.

The second step of our innovation uses proprietary methods to process the biochar and combine them with biopolymers sourced from sustainable suppliers. This is then utilized to create pellets that can be transformed into final products through various forming methods. As a result, these products go from creating emissions to reversing emissions.

We have created several of these compounds, or as we sometimes call them, “recipes,” to address a variety of use cases. Some are suited for the built environment; others for injection molding to create consumer goods. Our research facility, Carbon Lab, is constantly at work on new products and features to meet our customers’ needs.

From built environment to consumer goods

The built environment and consumer goods are our primary industries. The built environment is especially important as it contributes to about 40% of all global emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Reducing construction emissions will be vital to reaching climate goals, especially considering that embodied carbon accounts for 10-20% of EU buildings’ CO2 footprint today.

Finally, it is the built environment in which we can scale the production and roll-out of Made of Air material, building on our successful collaboration with Audi for a car dealership in Trudering, Germany. Our HexAudi rainscreen panels sequestered more than 10 tons of CO2, replacing a key, non-structural component of a building made of aluminum.

With our recent partnership with Arktura, a leading manufacturer of high-end design-focused architectural wall, ceiling, and facade panels, we are going to continue to deliver high-quality building products at scale.  

Replacing high emitters at scale

Our goal is to remove carbon, not to avoid emissions alone. Made of Air wants to replace traditional high emitters with sustainable and climate-friendly materials on a large scale, which we already know is possible.

We’re also working on different end-of-life scenarios to bring a truly circular product to the market which can be taken back to be reformed and repurposed via various recycling methods. This is the final ingredient of our recipe.