SPOTLIGHT ON SUSTAINABILITY
An in-depth look at one company using a carbon-negative material to contribute to a greener building industry
WITH the construction sector contributing to our global carbon footprint, many architects, specifiers and designers are turning to materials that can store carbon within. Embodied carbon – the emissions associated with the materials and construction processes used in the life cycle of a building – make up 20% of the total emissions from the UK’S built environment (according to UKGBC). Finding alternative materials that can help reduce this figure could have a substantial impact; however, with embodied carbon emissions still currently unregulated, the change is reliant on trailblazing innovation being utilised in a much broader capacity.
One duo eager to contribute to finding positive solutions to this dilemma is Allison Dring and Daniel Schwaag, co-founders of Made of Air. Both architects by training, they decided to embark on a project together to create a facade material that could mitigate urban air pollution. Spending time within factories, they became acutely aware of the large proportion of carbon emissions coming from the materials used. Developing this research, they settled on working with biochar, an already established carbon removal technology, and decided to experiment by transforming it into material composites. In 2016, the duo launched Made of Air, producing a biochar-based filler for thermoplastics that securely sequesters carbon within material composites for the duration of their lifespan.
Ninety per cent of this composite material is biochar – which is the result of a process (pyrolysis) that bakes non-competitive waste biomass (like wood chips) into a charcoal-like material, while converting the CO2 stored within it into elemental carbon. Such waste byproducts are otherwise incinerated today – rereleasing carbon back into the atmosphere. According to the company, this final carbon (biochar) will not release CO2 back into the air for 1,000 years.
Taking the process one step further, Made of Air utilises technology that converts the biochar into a biogenic material filler which, when paired with recycled plastics, concrete, rubber or bitumen, results in a composite material that can be used in a variety of building applications. Storing more carbon from the air than is emitted in its production, biochar removes three tonnes of CO2 from the air for every tonne produced. And, with some of the composites recyclable and able to be returned to the ground at the end of their life, a fully circular solution is created.
With a passionate drive to reverse the devastating impacts of climate change, the team hopes designers and architects can see the potential in this carbon-negative material for exterior and interior projects.
‘In order to have any impact, we will need to operate at the scale of the climate problem,’ states Allison.
With a huge ambition to meet such demands, Allison goes on to say how the impact of such scale could result in revolutionary change. “By 2060, replacing just 10% of the global plastics supply with our biochar fillers would result in a net removal of 3.3 gigatons CO2 per year – around a third of our current target of 10 gigatons CO2 to meet the Paris Agreement,” she explains. And with the scope of the material being vast, the goal of the team is to provide it to others, who then have the freedom in how they might use it. However, with the technological processes already a success, the design innovation will certainly follow. Not only are we excited to see how this material will be used and in what forms it might exist, but we also look forward to seeing how this could be pivotal in reshaping the design world as we know it, allowing us to create the sustainable future we so urgently need.