30 | Focus on resins: Chimar Hellas
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
RESINS:
Chimar Hellas looks at research into alternative eco-friendly resins for the wood-based panels sector
T
he growing concern over environmental pollution and its consequences on
health encourages the wood industry to develop environmentally friendly wood adhesives. Even though the market share of bio- based wood adhesives is still small, it has been shown that they can compete with petroleum-based adhesives and can be considered as an interesting alternative to traditional petroleum-based products. Bio-based adhesives have advantages
compared to adhesives derived from fossil resources such as biodegradability, lower toxicity, lower carbon footprint, positive impact on climate change and sustainable design. Moreover, to achieve a sizeable and economically feasible bioeconomy, new technologies are needed to diversify and deliver processes that can use available, underutilized and more sustainable bio- sources.
Apart from the constantly evolving technologies of the conventional wood
adhesives that constitute the core business, Chimar is committed to becoming a greener developer of adhesives by continuously developing sustainable innovations and creating a big range of bio-based adhesives. As an R&D focused company, it is committed in satisfying the current and future needs of the wood-based panel adhesive industry. Therefore, an integral part of its activities, since the early 1990s, were focused on reducing the carbon footprint of the developed technologies. Technologies to produce wood-based panels with bio-based adhesives, mainly tannin based, existed even before the synthetic adhesives were available but their industrial use was limited because they always reduced the profitability of the manufacturing facilities. Over the course of the last 40 years several bio-based adhesives have been developed but always problems such as availability of the raw materials, at constant quality and price, and economic performance of the said technologies
on industrial lines have prohibited their widespread use.
In the early 2010s the bio-based agenda
started gaining momentum on an industrial level, meaning companies had to embrace bio-based solutions because of market demand and because it became obvious that the carbon footprint discussion was gaining ground in the public and political agenda. Today several producers of WBP openly
advertise and seek publicity for their bio- based bonded boards, such as Finsa, Ikea, Kastamonu, Pfleiderer, Swiss Krono, Unilin, UPM, Latvijas Finieris and Koskisen to name a few. Currently Chimar, on the one hand, is further developing, through partnerships (e.g. with Finish Pulp and Paper giant UPM as well as the Canadian bio-polymer specialist EcoSynthetix), the commercially available bio-polymer platforms and, on the other hand is carrying out research, targeting to reduce the carbon footprint of the solutions applied industrially today, in the framework of EU-funded projects.
ALTERNATIVE RESIN SOLUTIONS Within the EU Valuable project, adhesives modified with chitosan were developed. This had been derived from crustaceans and Aspergillus niger biomass waste, for the production of particleboards and plywood. Chitosan, a linear biopolymer, has low
water solubility compared to the most natural polymers, which makes it an interesting and promising alternative in promoting the adhesives’ water resistance. Importantly, the antifungal properties
Above: Chimar Hellas HQ WBPI | April/May 2024 |
www.wbpionline.com
of chitosan imply that using chitosan as an adhesive will have the additional advantage of protecting the wood from attack by wood-decaying microorganisms. Moreover, it was found that chitosan has the potential to adsorb free and hydrolyzed formaldehyde from wood-based panels. Such advantages of chitosan are being assessed and monitored within the Valuable project.
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