MOXY aims to lead the green transformation in cultural heritage conservation by developing a clean technology, which uses nothing but oxygen atoms to remove diverse carbon-based contaminants from sensitive cultural heritage materials in a non-contact way. The project is ambitous, as it literally aims to upper layers of Earth's atmosphere, where powerful solar ultraviolet radiation splits O2 molecules into atoms. The monatomic O does not recombine easily in space intro the diatomic form O2 or ozone, beacuse the oxygen density is much lower and therefore has fewer interactions.

The conditions are vey different on the ground, where oxygen atoms nearly instantly recombine to O2, ozone or quickly react with other unattached or weakly bonded atoms. The MOXY concept aims to couple the extremely short lifetime of oxygen atoms on the ground, with its high chemical reactivity, as a basis for contactless atomic-scale removal of carbon-based contaminants that deteriorate cultural heritage assets - soot, combustion products, hydrocarbons, and organic compounds that ablate literally into "thin air", producing only small amounts of volatile and benign environmental by products, such as CO, CO2 or H2O vapor.