Made of Air<\/a> has closed a \u20ac5 million (~$5.8 million) seed funding round, led by Norwegian sustainability-focused family fund, TD Veen. Also participating are Patrick Pichette (former CFO of Google and chairman of the board of Twitter), EQT Group, Thomas Von Koch (CEO & co-founder of EQT Group), Tuesday Capital, the co-founders of Pexip and Olympic gold medalist skier, Aksel Lund Svindal.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAs the name (kind of) implies, Made of Air (MoA) is producing durable materials for a variety of use cases that make use of (pyrolyzed) wood waste in order to lock up carbon for long periods in the resulting hardened carbon-negative thermoplastic compound. (Which is literally made from biochar and bioplastics).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MoA is intending this carbon sequestration product to offer an alternative to fossil-based thermoplastics for use cases where the material has a long life, and it has some early experimental partnerships with car maker Audi (producing fa\u00e7ade panels for an installation on its marquee dealership) and with the fashion chain H&M (creating biomass-based sunglasses, among other experimental projects).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also has a partnership with an unnamed U.S.-based furniture maker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur feedstock is a biomass waste stream from forestry. So the waste stream that we\u2019re looking at is from sawdust and small chip sizes from the forestry industry and what\u2019s happening is in the cut of the trees for timber products \u2014 usually for construction \u2014 you have a lot of products going down stream from that process and we are at the very end of that process,\u201d explains founder and CEO Allison Dring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is waste that otherwise is going to be landfilled or gasified or burned, and in all three of those cases you have the loss of the CO2 storage in the material.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the pyrolysis step \u2014 so in the process of making it into biochar \u2014 we\u2019re actually taking the CO2 that\u2019s in the material and we\u2019re converting it into pretty close to an elemental carbon. So in that stuff you actually lock into a material. It doesn\u2019t retain in a gas form \u2014 which is a lot of indirect air capture, I think you hear about that \u2014 you have a gas sometimes then you have an issue about what to do with the gas \u2014 here we\u2019re locked into elemental carbon which doesn\u2019t go back to CO2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2016-founded materials startup has shipped over 10 tons of materials to date to more than four different customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese are more strategic partners looking to decarbonize their supply chain with our carbon-negative materials,\u201d says Dring. \u201cIndustries with the highest emission reduction needs are the built environment, automotive\/mobility and consumer goods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While there can be environmental and other concerns attached to the biomass industry \u2014 such as if trees that wouldn\u2019t otherwise be cut down are chopped down just to burn for energy or crops which could be used for food are instead burnt for fuel \u2014 Dring says they are not using biomass from non-forestry trees that could otherwise not be cut down and could be left to continue capturing carbon as they grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also notes that the material they produce can be created from other types of biomass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking at is that waste stream right now. Obviously we can do this with other biomass waste streams. We\u2019re looking at how we can regionalize it,\u201d she tells TechCrunch. \u201cSo it\u2019s not about relying on one type \u2014 we can do this process with any plant material that has photosynthesized. What we don\u2019t want to do is interrupt or cause any fluctuation in the food supply, so we don\u2019t want to \u2014 by our demand for our product \u2014 create a monocrop on the other side for agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo we are looking at non-food supplies or some kind of feedstock that comes from food waste that\u2019s plentiful. So we look at the bush around coffee beans, for example \u2014 the woody, biomass waste from that is one potential waste stream. Or it could be like rice hulls or it could be the tomato stems. These kind of very good, high carbon content waste streams that we can hybridize so that we don\u2019t cause a run on tomatoes for example.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe essentially try to look at it as there\u2019s a natural process in the CO2 going back into the air as the biomass starts to decompose and what we\u2019re doing is interrupting that cycle \u2014 to save the CO2 from going back in the air,\u201d she adds. \u201cAnd we can do that with these waste streams especially from wood really because the wood industry is an industry and the idea that carbon is stored in wood, and these products can be useful for example in building applications where you have a lifetime of sometimes 30, 50 years \u2014 we see that\u2019s an industry that deserves to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making use of more timber in construction is one potential way to replace high CO2 materials like steel, she suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo this is an industry that we\u2019re okay with taking up the waste \u2014 and as we scale up our model we think about what happens if the wood industry scales up and this is actually a good thing in terms of carbon storage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dring says MoA is aiming for its biomass-based thermoplastic to have the \u201ctypical fire resistant properties\u201d expected from paneling materials in the building environment (both interior and exterior).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis applies to mechanical properties as well,\u201d she also notes. \u201cIn the built environment, we also look to replace other non-structural materials in addition to thermoplastics. In general, our materials target equal or superior performance to their fossil thermoplastic counterparts depending on use cases and aim to be drop-in ready for existing forming processes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The startup is not aiming for the biomass-derived material to be used in fast moving consumer goods or single use consumer products (like water bottles, coffee cup lids etc.); rather the material is designed for \u201cdurability\u201d and intended as a replacement for \u201chigh emissions thermoplastics\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the types of potential products it could be used for are things like furniture, interior\/exterior panelling, car dashboards and \u201cclosed-loop products\u201d used by businesses within their own supply chains, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur goal is carbon removal rather than just reduced emissions\u201d, says Dring. \u201cThe compounds that we\u2019re making are not biodegradable so these are durable thermoplastics that we\u2019re making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe way that we\u2019re seeing it is they\u2019re a method for storing carbon in products but what we want are products with very long lifetimes \u2014 as long as we can\u2026 It\u2019s about 50% of the plastic market is here and if you have biodegradables on one side, handling disposable products, there\u2019s a lot of tech going on there; it\u2019s very interesting. On the durable side manufacturers don\u2019t have a lot of alternatives that are sustainable so this is the area that we\u2019re looking at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn our business model we are buying the feedstock and we\u2019re just setting the precedent for how biomass streams are treated. We\u2019re anticipating that a lot of our resources are moving from below ground to above ground and there is going to be an inherent value in these biomass streams and we\u2019re just starting with what\u2019s there,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cost to MoA\u2019s customers of buying the material varies per use-case, according to Dring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are differentiating according to product application,\u201d she says, noting that the startup is only now heading into its first pilot production line (\u201cso our prices are still a bit higher than where they will be when we\u2019re at scale\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRight now, just to give you a range in terms of thermoplastics, we\u2019re between a fossil-plastic and a bioplastic in price. And obviously in scale we\u2019re heading towards the fossil plastic to be competitive there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The end of life scenario for MoA\u2019s material is also potentially a novel one. So where fossil-based thermoplastics can cause lasting environmental pollution, as they do not biodegrade and the economics around recycling can be challenging, Dring says its biomass-based material could be ground down and returned to the earth at the end of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although of course it\u2019s industry practice and consumer habit, not what\u2019s theoretically possible, that will dictate what really happens to its pyrolyzed wood waste at the end of a product\u2019s lifespan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dring says the startup\u2019s product \u201cis an entirely circular material\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a thermoplastic so basically at the end of life the products can be collected, they be ground down and reformed \u2014 so it really behaves like other plastics in that way. What\u2019s special about our material versus those plastics is what we have is a pathway to the ground at the true end of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo these products, after use cycles, can be ground down and actually put back in the ground and this is very significant for us, it\u2019s significant for our partners \u2014 because what that essentially means is we\u2019ve taken the carbon out of the ground 150 years ago we\u2019ve pumped it up into the air, we\u2019ve captured it through biomass, we\u2019ve put it to work in a product and essentially we\u2019re returning it to the ground. So this is the end of the carbon loop\u2026 and we think there aren\u2019t many technologies that can do that permanently \u2014 and this is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you have products with these lifetimes \u2014 10 to 50 years \u2014 we have more of a chance to actually put the carbon to work,\u201d she adds. \u201cSo we can take it out of the air and we can actually embed it in those products and then we have, yes, questions about what happens at the end of life but we have more time to work that out and we will have averted, for many years, more harmful products.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course true circularity is still \u201ca long way off\u201d \u2014 and will require a whole village, not just a single startup with a novel material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe still have a lot of work to do with industry, to figure out how take-back works, and how we can collect waste at the end of a lifetime of a product and how we can safely do this thing \u2014 putting it back in the ground \u2014 but the potential is there, the pathway is there\u2026 There are lots of challenges \u2014 the biggest thing is we\u2019re one company and the parallel I like to use is that you don\u2019t want one company cleaning the plastics out of the ocean. You really need a joined up effort. And that\u2019s very much how we see it,\u201d says Dring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have a technology that\u2019s capable of doing this \u2014 but we need support from partners, we need policy, we need waste collection, we also need consumer behavior \u2014 all of these things to join together to start to reformulate how we think about the end of a product\u2019s life. And I think we\u2019re kind of getting there with circularity [and the circular economy] and I think that\u2019s an amazing step in thinking \u2014 and a lot in waste collection is changing because of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re asking is the next version beyond that \u2014 how do we de-cycle materials out of our system that can very rightly go in the ground? I can\u2019t name how many challenges there are in there but I think there\u2019s real momentum to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commenting on the seed funding round in a statement, Kjell Skappel, CEO of TD Veen, said: \u201cWe are really impressed by what Allison, Daniel and the rest of the Made of Air team has accomplished to date and are proud to have led the round. We are convinced that the demand for carbon negative materials will grow substantially in the foreseeable future as industries look to lower their carbon footprint and future proof their supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In another supporting statement, Pichette added: \u201cWith my personal experience in the forestry industry, it is clear that Made of Air\u2019s potential for impact at scale is immense given the volume of feedstock materials available.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Berlin-based climate tech startup Made of Air has closed a \u20ac5 million (~$5.8 million) seed funding round, led by Norwegian sustainability-focused family fund, TD Veen. Also participating are Patrick Pichette (former CFO of Google and chairman of the board of Twitter), EQT Group, Thomas Von Koch (CEO & co-founder of EQT Group), Tuesday Capital, the co-founders of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"MoA is intending this carbon sequestration product to offer an alternative to fossil-based thermoplastics for use cases","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[10744,10416,11966,10743],"supplier":[774,11168,18472],"class_list":["post-98745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-carboncapture","tag-circulareconomy","tag-plastics","tag-useco2","supplier-audi-ag","supplier-hennes-mauritz-gmbh-hm","supplier-made-of-air"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98745"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=98745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}