Lignin spheres reduce the carbon footprint of adhesives and coatings
Uusi puu – The New Wood Project shows what wood can do. The project promotes wood-based innovations and provides information about them.
The lignin spheres used in LignoSphere’s products serve as a bio-based component in epoxy-based adhesives and coatings, significantly reducing the carbon footprint of the products.
The coatings and adhesives industry relies largely on petrochemical raw materials. Typically, more than 80 per cent of the industry’s carbon footprint is generated in the supply chain and raw material production.
Reducing the carbon footprint is extremely difficult with the current range of raw materials. Oil production and its global availability involve significant risks, the prices of raw materials fluctuate considerably, and they are unlikely to decrease in the long term.
Biomaterials have been studied for decades as a solution to this challenge, particularly lignin, nature’s own adhesive. At least 50 million tonnes of lignin are generated annually worldwide as a side stream of the pulp industry, making it an abundant and inexpensive raw material.
However, well over 95 per cent of all lignin generated in pulp production is burned for energy. The main reason for this is that raw lignin has been difficult to process and utilise. Even today, there are very few cost-competitive lignin-based end products on the market.
LignoSphere has developed and patented a cost-effective process for converting raw lignin into so-called nanoparticles – small, uniform spheres that the company calls LignoSpheres.
LignoSpheres are made entirely from wood and have a wide range of potential applications. They enable the use of lignin, for example, in high-performance epoxy-based coatings and adhesives. In two-component epoxy solutions, the lignin spheres function as one of the two main components, replacing the highly fossil-based B component with a 100 per cent bio-based alternative.
This does not mean that the resulting epoxy products are biodegradable or completely harmless. In the case of epoxies, this is not even possible, as they must cure rapidly at low temperatures and be highly durable.
However, the method developed by the company makes it possible to reduce the carbon footprint of fossil-based high-volume products used in industry and construction by tens of per cent, while also lowering costs and maintaining performance comparable to conventional epoxy products. In addition, epoxy products based on LignoSpheres do not contain harmful bisphenol A.
Forest.fi and New Wood are initiatives of the Finnish Forest Association.