Last week, I attended a fascinating meeting with other members of our Innovation Board.
We were given a presentation by a company who is currently trialling a binder replacement product of which I have talked about in the past. This replacement binder is ‘Lignin’ which acts as wood’s natural binder. Lignin is a plant derived polymer found in almost all dry land plants in this case, trees. It binds cellulose and hemicellulose together as a natural glue giving wood its stiffness and resistance to rotting. Principally, Lignin is a waste product from the process to produce wood pulp that is used to make paper etc and whilst this renewable material has numerous applications across a variety of industries, it is mainly used in the form of combustion for heat recovery, resulting in low-value utilisation. I’m very excited by such a prospect that simply couldn’t come at a better time with the cost of binder currently sky rocketing.
Whilst we are probably too late to submit a bid for Live Labs 2, this shouldn’t stop us pushing the boundaries by trialling such products and fast-tracking them into the market.
I’d be really interested to learn if any of our members would like to know more about this binder replacement and whether any local highway authority would be prepared to offer up a trial site.