The Olympics in Tokyo just ended and it is slated to be one of the hottest on record with extreme heat and humidity forcing changes to track, tennis and women’s soccer schedules and World Athletics president Sebastien Coe saying “You don’t have to be a devotee of climate change or a denier to know the […]
In Latvia, a project was selected in the frame of HORIZON Europe program for research and innovation that aims to take significant commercialization steps based on the natural wood component lignin, creating industrial technologies for a significant reduction of the share of fossil raw materials in phenol formaldehyde resin, which is currently widely used in […]
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by.” Robert Frost Let’s say there are 2 roads – one a traditional fossil-fuel based asphalt road and the other a biobased lignin asphalt road. Which one would you take? We know you can make almost anything out of lignin, […]
In Finland, Stora Enso launched its latest lignin-based innovation, NeoLigno, a fully bio-based binder system without formaldehyde and isocyanates, thus, providing healthier indoor and working environments. Initial target applications for NeoLigno are in particleboards and insulation materials used in the building and construction industry. Hazardous chemicals aren’t always visible to the naked eye, yet they […]
In Colorado, a foundational study conducted by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows for the first time that white-rot fungi are able to use carbon captured from lignin as a carbon source. The research confirms a hypothesis the senior author of a newly published paper. Until now, scientists were unsure whether white-rot […]
In Colorado, a study conducted by scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows for the first time that white-rot fungi are able to use carbon captured from lignin as a carbon source, which could be further exploited to simultaneously convert the biopolymer into value-added compounds. The research confirms a hypothesis from Davinia Salvachúa […]
In France, researchers reporting in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering have found that microbes from the guts of certain termite species can help break down lignin, a particularly tough polymer in straw. In previous research, they showed that gut microbes from four termite species could degrade lignin in anaerobic bioreactors. Now they wanted to take […]
In Finland, Stora Enso is investing EUR 14 million to build a granulation and packing plant for lignin, allowing easier packing and handling of lignin compared to powder and wet form. The construction of the granulation plant is estimated to begin by the end of the second quarter of 2021 and to be complete in […]
In Georgia, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that a new low-temperature multi-phase process for upgrading lignin bio-oil to hydrocarbons could help expand use of the lignin, which is now largely a waste product left over from the productions of cellulose and bioethanol from trees and other woody plants. Using a dual catalyst […]
In New York state, a research team at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) has a plan to turn waste into a green solvent for biofuel production. They concluded that lignin – a polymer deposited in the cell walls of many plants – has the potential to replace biomass processing solvent and drive […]
