{"id":41287,"date":"2017-03-17T07:26:09","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T06:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=41287"},"modified":"2017-03-15T13:48:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T12:48:06","slug":"recent-lignin-announcements-show-repeated-mistakes-not-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/recent-lignin-announcements-show-repeated-mistakes-not-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Lignin Announcements Show Repeated Mistakes, Not Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 2017 had two noteworthy announcements pertaining to lignin-based materials: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland announced the development of a reactive lignin product to replace phenol in phenol formaldehyde adhesives and the Institute of Textile Chemistry and Chemical Fibers (ITCF) Denkendorf announced its participation in the \u201cLIBRE Project\u201d (Lignin Based Carbon Fibers for Composites). However, lignin\u2019s successful use in materials has faced challenges including processing, derivatization, lignin\u2019s unpleasant odor and dark colors, and questionable cost and performance benefits ([see the report \u201cAssessing Lignin-based Material Innovations<\/a>\u201c] client registration required). As such, we have given Lux Takes based on the probability of these announcements for overcoming these issues:<\/p>\n

VTT develops reactive lignin product as a phenol replacement (Lux Take: Caution):\u00a0VTT recently announced its CatLignin technology to produce reactive lignin, which it described as an ideal replacement phenol in phenol formaldehyde adhesives. Drivers for CatLignin\u2019s use include the toxicity of phenol,\u00a0legislation against volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and a reduced CO2\u00a0footprint. VTT is now searching for partners to both scale its technology and develop applications for its material.<\/p>\n

Lignin-based adhesives have\u00a0struggled historically, showing no performance or cost advantages over incumbents. Although VTT\u2019s lignin, unlike previous attempts at lignin-based adhesives, is reactive, it does little else to overcome the other challenges faced by lignin-based adhesives, including product variability, dark color, odor, and long curing times.<\/p>\n

Moreover, while VTT highlights its material\u2019s potential uses, the onus is on partners for applications development. This strategy contrasts with West Fraser\u2019s strategy to use its lignin-based adhesive internally before commercialization. Although West Fraser\u2019s adhesive has an unclear value proposition, its internal use strategy allows it to improve the performance and cost of its technology for future external customers, an advantage that VTT lacks.\u00a0While VTT\u2019s CatLignin provides a novel reactive form of lignin for adhesives, it is not clear whether or not it provides performance or cost advantages over incumbent adhesives. Moreover, VTT\u2019s reliance on external parties for scale and development will only make success more difficult<\/p>\n

ITCF Denkendorf announces participation in the LIBRE Project<\/a> (Lux Take: Strong Caution):\u00a0The LIBRE Project, part of the European Commission Horizon 2020, aims to convert lignin into precursor fiber (replacing the traditional conversion of acrylonitrile into polyacrylonitile [PAN] fiber), replace the traditional thermal treatment steps with more energy efficient treatments utilizing microwaves and high-frequency radiation, and add new plasma surface treatments that replace traditional liquid chemical surface treatment and sizing.\u00a0In particular, ITCF will be focusing on converting raw lignin to precursor fiber using chemical functionalization for stability and melt spinning. Then, ITCF and partners will work on conversion of these precursor fibers to carbon fibers.Although the LIBRE Project aims to produce an improved lignin-based carbon fiber, there does not appear to be anything novel about its approach.<\/p>\n

For instance, the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been developing alternative thermal treatments, including atmospheric plasma oxidation and microwave-assisted plasma carbonization, for several years to reduce cost and residence time. What\u2019s more, even ORNL is not using lignin-based carbon fiber to reinforce its bio-based polymers because of the material\u2019s inferior performance.\u00a0Thus, the LIBRE Project will likely fail, given its lack of distinction from previous failed efforts.<\/p>\n

\u200bIn spite of lignin\u2019s potential for use in materials, there has been limited progress in actual materials development due to inferior cost and performance. The most promising examples, though, are those that take novel approaches to product development, such as West Fraser\u2019s internal lignin-adhesive testing, and the ORNL decision to only develop a partially lignin-based material \u2013 its ABL (acrylonitrile, butadiene, lignin) thermoplastic, which shows improved toughness over\u00a0ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). However, neither VTT nor ITCF has targeted a novel strategy, instead taking traditional approaches that have already failed.\u00a0Readers interested in lignin should, instead, focus on developers taking drastically different strategies for lignin-based material commercialization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 2017 had two noteworthy announcements pertaining to lignin-based materials: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland announced the development of a reactive lignin product to replace phenol in phenol formaldehyde adhesives and the Institute of Textile Chemistry and Chemical Fibers (ITCF) Denkendorf announced its participation in the \u201cLIBRE Project\u201d (Lignin Based Carbon Fibers for Composites). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,6026,11828],"supplier":[486,2101,2437,459,9618],"class_list":["post-41287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-biopolymers","tag-lignin","supplier-itv-denkendorf-produktservice-gmbh","supplier-luxresearch","supplier-oak-ridge-national-laboratory","supplier-vtt-technical-research-centre-of-finland","supplier-west-fraser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41287"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=41287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}