Spinverse helped VIOBOND project to secure 16M € funding to develop technology that replaces fossil resources with renewable lignin

Phenolic resins are one of the most versatile polymers yet invented. Spinverse recently supported the VIOBOND consortium to secure funding of 16M € from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) grant. VIOBOND project with a total budget of 32M € is led by Latvijas Finieris, and it aims to help build a sustainable and safe flagship plant for large-scale production of lignin phenol-formaldehyde (LPF). In this project, lignin will be used to partially substitute hazardous chemicals of fossil origin.

Lignin is one of the most abundant bio-based materials globally available. About one third of the biomass in trees and grasses are lignin. Lignin is fractionated in the biorefinery or in the pulping process and recovered in energy in the forest industry production processes, but less than 2% being used in high-value applications. The VIOBOND consortium with nine partners from five countries is set to change this and are planning to build a first-of-its-kind plant to produce lignin phenol-formaldehyde (LPF) resins for various applications.  

The FPF resin has a number of potential applications for consumer products and more. The binder to be produced in the new plant to be built in Latvia can be used for example as plywood resin, as an adhesive for plywood panels, sandpaper, in coating film and thermal insulation. All these applications are demonstrated in the five-year VIOBOND project.

Support from Spinverse experts secured considerable funding for the project

Spinverse funding experts supported the VIOBOND project in building the consortium and the successful funding proposal in the highly competitive BBI JU call. The funding of 16 M€ enables the consortium to introduce more sustainable binders to the consumer markets and decreases the use of hazardous chemicals of fossil origin.

Kristaps Stankus from Latvijas Finieris says: “Spinverse gave us indispensable insights regarding necessary project information on the call requirements for the Horizon Europe. The application required a lot of information which was expected but not necessary explicitly mentioned. With Spinverse expertise, we were successful in securing this EU funding worth 16 M€ for the project and were able to build this consortium to produce more sustainable binders in the future.”

The consortium partners working together in the VIOBOND project are as follows: 

Lead partner: AS Latvijas Finieris Group

Partners in alphabetical order: Chempolis Oy, Fundació Universitària Balmes (Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya), OÜ Graanul Biotech, Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry, Mirka Oy, Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft GmbH, Saint-Gobain Finland Oy / ISOVER and St1 Oy.