Scion extends Sonae Industria’s Woodforce license to include North America

In New Zealand, Crown Research Institute Scion and global wood processing giant Sonae Industria Group have signed an agreement that extends Sonae Industria’s exclusive 2011 “Woodforce” licence to commercialize a revolutionary wood fibre technology for polymer reinforcement to North America. Invented by Scion, the technology binds wood fibre in pellet form to produce ‘dice’. The dice behave just like plastic pellets in the manufacturing process. This ease and accuracy of handling means the dice can be fed directly into conventional extruders, from which the compound can then go into injection moulding as well as profile extrusion for processing as fibre-reinforced plastics.