A wall tile made almost entirely from wood-processing waste is at the centre of one of the more concrete Elementic MO6 carbon storage claims to emerge from the construction materials sector: that each kilogram of product sequesters approximately 2.4 kilograms of atmospheric carbon dioxide, potentially for thousands of years.
The material is MO6, made by Elementic, a Finnish materials startup. Its core ingredient is lignin, the structural compound found in wood that paper mills and timber processors routinely discard. Lignin typically ends up burned for energy. Elementic chose to treat it as the primary raw material instead.
From wood waste to 90% carbon tile
The finished product is a wall-surfacing tile that is 90% carbon by chemistry. Elementic says its carbon storage rate is roughly double that of wood itself, and, critically, unlike wood, the material does not decay. Where timber eventually burns or rots and releases its stored carbon back into the atmosphere, MO6 is designed to hold that carbon indefinitely.
The manufacturing process is patented and, by Elementic’s own description, highly secretive. What the company has disclosed is its general shape. Lignin is processed in a bioreactor to remove impurities, including oxygen. ‘We take the lignin, we create a kind of dough that we bake like a cake, and in the end we get a hard, resistant, durable material but which is lightweight,’ said Johanna Normiala, MO6’s general manager.
The tile is fire-resistant and lightweight, with an off-black colour and a rough texture that Elementic describes as dramatic. Thermal and acoustic properties are comparable to wood, and the company expects further improvements as the manufacturing process develops. For now, MO6 is marketed for dry indoor spaces only, available in rougher or smoother finishes, with a coating option.
Elementic MO6 carbon storage positioned as a design choice, not just a green credential
MO6 launched its debut collection, MO6 Eternal, on 2 September at Habitare, a design trade fair in Helsinki held as part of Helsinki Design Week. The choice of venue was deliberate. Elementic is positioning MO6 as a premium interior design brand rather than a sustainability product that happens to have aesthetic properties.
That distinction matters commercially. A product sold on environmental credentials alone reaches one category of buyer. A product sold as a design choice that also stores carbon can reach architects, hotel developers, and interior designers who are not specifically shopping for sustainable materials. MO6 is already delivering product to live projects. A spa under construction in Paris is among the first named examples.
‘We are very much eager to help or support our customers whatever is the area of application, but I would say that the focused interest are in the area of hotels, restaurants,’ said Normiala.
What comes next, and what remains unresolved
The company’s next development is bricks, an ambition that would move MO6 from interior finish to structural building material and open up considerably larger applications. ‘There’s a huge potential for that, not only interior part, which is now our first business, but in future in a much larger scale in building,’ said Normiala.
Two questions sit alongside the promise. The first is longevity: Elementic’s claim that the carbon could remain locked in the material for potentially thousands of years is by nature unverifiable over any human timescale and rests on the assumption that the material is not incinerated at end of life. The company says MO6 is designed to be recyclable, which is central to that argument.
The second is transparency. As green materials become commercially valuable, sustainability researchers have started to ask how much of the underlying knowledge gets locked behind intellectual property protections rather than shared openly. Elementic’s patented, secretive process sits squarely inside that tension. For now, the company has a product on the market, a Paris project underway, and a carbon claim that architects will be weighing as the bricks phase moves from ambition to prototype.
