Work Packages
| WP1 is devoted to identifying the most sustainable feedstock from existing European starch-based and vegetable oil-based bio-refineries. This will provide the raw materials for producing the thermoset resins that will form the binders. WP1 will also examine any pre-treatment of the feedstocks that will be needed for subsequent WPs, where necessary pre-treating the carbohydrates and vegetable oils used for producing carbohydrate binders (WP2) and ingredient for epoxy oils/fatty acids binders (WP3). |
| WP2 will develop the chemical syntheses for producing the carbohydrate-based amino-plastic, and other wood resin systems. This will polymerise urea and other monomers using intermediates derived from high-purified carbohydrates during WP1. This allows investigation of the reactions of the carbohydrates during resin synthesis and to test other modification reactions. This should deliver precursors suitable for using as bio-based binders for wood board production. Resins can be produced on laboratory scale to investigate properties and the most promising candidates are upscaled to pilot level to allow them to be validated as binders. |
| WP3 will develop a new enzymatic technology that selectively creates epoxides unsaturated plant fatty acids and oils for use as bio-based binders for particle boards and medium density fibre boards. Specifically, it will focus on enzyme production for the laboratory and pilot epoxidation; laboratory-scale lipid epoxidation with different unspecific peroxygenases (UPOs); laboratory-scale evaluation of epoxidised lipids for resin; up-scaling lipid epoxidation with the selected UPO and evaluation of the final epoxy resin or as cross linker of carbohydrate based resins. |
| WP4 will validate the new bio-based binders produced in WP2 and WP3 in an industrially-relevant production environment for particle boards and medium-density fibre boards. This will allow the project to capture the comparable mechanical properties and lower emission profiles than current state of the art boards. The pilot boards produced will also be will tested by a board end-user customer. |
| WP5 will verify the environmental, market and regulatory requirements for the bio-based binder system. This will ensure that the project meets its objective of producing a binder system with a smaller carbon footprint and less human health impact than the current fossil-based binder systems while meeting relevant market and regulatory requirements. |
| WP6 addresses dissemination, exploitation and communication activities relating the project. It will plan and execute these activities in a way that enhances innovation capacity and integrates the new insights developed by the project partners and the wood-based board sector as a whole. It will coordinate this process, developing the relevant communication tools to reach the intended audiences from the stakeholder mapping. This will help build a project community and network, as well as disseminate project results in addition to events, training and workshops. |
| WP7 is devoted to project coordination activities. This will ensure that the project meets all deliverables on time and on budget according to the grant agreement. It will also provide effective communication between the project and the BBI-JU. |
