SUSBOARD · Biobased adhesives for sustainable wood-based boards

The production of wood-based materials is an important industrial sector in the EU: approx. 40 million m³ particleboards (PB) and 20 million m³ medium density fiberboards (MDF) are produced in Europe every year, utilizing about 5 million tonnes of fossil-based adhesives.To reduce the climate impact of these products, the substitution of fossil-based chemicals in these adhesives is necessary. Moreover, most of the currently used adhesives contain formaldehyde, which is a cancerogenic substance.In SUSBOARD, partners along the whole value chain from renewable resources to furniture come together to bring a 100% bio-based, formaldehyde-free, technically and economically viable adhesive close to market. In the previous RIA project SusBind, an adhesive based on over 80% of renewable material was developed and demonstrated to function in high-quality boards. SUSBOARD will substitute the fossil-based component of this adhesive system with bio-based polylysine, thereby delivering a 100% bio-based solution. This new adhesive system showed very promising results during preliminary testing, where it surpassed the SusBind adhesive in terms of strength development. The adhesive production will be scaled to multi ton-scale and the adhesive will be tested in two different applications, the production of PB and MDF. The SUSBOARD consortium will validate the technical and quality-related performance of the adhesive in industrial board production as well as the board quality for further processing and furniture production.The whole project will be accompanied by an SSbD analysis to ensure sustainability and demonstrate the lower impact of the new adhesive on the environment (up to 30% lower CO2 footprint) and human health.The developed adhesive will be the first cost-competitive, sustainable and completely bio-based adhesive for industrial wood board production. The project partners are therefore leading the way to more sustainable, fossil-free furniture production.