Lignin is the substance that holds wood together. The forestry industry gets it in large quantities as a by-product, finds it awkward to use, and mostly burns it for energy. The Finnish materials company Elementic runs lignin through a bioreactor and strips out oxygen and other impurities in a patented process it will not describe. What comes out is MO6: thick, lightweight wall tiles, rough to the touch and close to black, 90 per cent carbon by chemistry.
Elementic says every kilo of the material holds about three kilos of atmospheric CO2. The first collection, MO6 Eternal, was shown on 2 September at the Habitare fair in Helsinki, and for now it is sold only for dry indoor rooms; bricks are in development. The direction is the interesting part. The waste stream that used to be burned has become the product, and the product is where the carbon stays.
So…:
What do you currently burn off that somebody else could build with?
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