Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Lowering Embodied Carbon from the Built Environment: a novel bio-based adhesive for sustainable construction materials

EPA Contract Number: 68HERC24C0027
Title: Lowering Embodied Carbon from the Built Environment: a novel bio-based adhesive for sustainable construction materials
Investigators: Drukker, Ze’ev
Small Business: Lab to Market Fund, LLC (dba Adhesion Technologies)
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2023 through May 30, 2024
Project Amount: $100,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase I (2024) RFA Text |  Recipients Lists
Research Category: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)

Description:

Over the course of the EPA SBIR Phase I contract, Adhesion Technologies set out to demonstrate technical feasibility and commercial attractiveness of a novel bio-based adhesive to decarbonize the built environment. Commonly used industrial adhesives are large emitters of volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) and greenhouse gasses. Formaldehyde-based adhesives, which are classified as a carcinogenic VOC, are the industry standard in the composite wood industry. Non-toxic soy-based adhesives have been developed, however, they emit 6 tons of CO2e for every ton produced, and are prohibitively expensive. By engineering distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS), a widely available and low cost waste byproduct from corn ethanol production, our company has developed a cost-competitive and high performing bio-based adhesive for interior and exterior wood products applications. From a cost perspective, we demonstrated competitiveness by being ~75% and ~50% lower cost when compared to soy- or formaldehyde-based adhesives, respectively.

Based on customer discovery and the TABA assessment showing the large market potential and industry need, we focused on plywood panels. We secured a key industry collaboration with States Industries, a leading plywood manufacturer. The company supplied key materials, shared testing protocols, and provided technical support during the project. In Phase II, we will run a large-scale production pilot at States Industries’ commercial facility. Moreover, we identified a large unmet market need for bio-based adhesives in the furniture. Hence, we developed prototypes for interior use applications and presented results to IKEA.

In sum (Table 1), we achieved key technical and commercial milestones that resulted in a bio-based adhesive used for manufacturing and testing plywood prototypes in partnership with an industrial player. More work will be needed in Phase II to transition the lab-scale minimum viable product (MVP) into an industrialized and ready product for partners.

Table 1: Summary of objectives and results from SBIR Phase I project

Objective	Success Criteria	Results
Development and optimization of DDGS adhesive formulations	Eco-friendly formulation with equal or better properties than current industrial adhesive	● Eco-friendly: Bio-based adhesive formulation free from VOCs developed and optimized ● Properties: All industry standards test met ● Cost: 75% and 50% cheaper than soy and formaldehyde, respectively
Manufacturing small scale prototypes	Development of diverse, scalable and manufacturable prototypes	● Prototypes: ~185 prototypes manufactured with different formulation parameters ● Process: Scalable process developed optimizing for tack, spreadability and optimal protein amount
Prototype testing	Prototypes need to meet or exceed the benchmarks set by existing industry standards.	● Interior use: Met 2 key industry benchmark preconditioning wettability tests (ANSI/HPVA Type II, EN 314 Class 1) ● Exterior use: Met 2 key industry benchmark preconditioning wettability tests (EN 314 Class 2, EN 314 Class 3) ● VOC testing: Demonstrated no VOCs from adhesive formulation via third party certification

 

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

Technical Progress

DDGS, the main raw material in our adhesive, was procured from a local ethanol producer. The DDGS is approximately 95% solid content with 5% moisture. After months of experimentation, aproprietary processing protocol for DDGS, as well as a suitable adhesive formulation composed of DDGS, alkaline compounds, and a curing agent, were developed. The current adhesive formulation matches current industry usability and material standards, such as viscosity, density, pH, fluid structure (non-Newtonian and shear thinning), solids content, shelf stability, and mixing capabilities. Using our adhesive, we successfully fabricated 3-ply plywood prototypes that pass industry wet strength standards for both interior- and exterior-use plywood, including ANSI/HPVA Type II and EN 314 Class 1 standards (interior), and EN 314 Class 2 and 3 standards (covered and uncovered exterior, respectively).

An in-kind partnership with States Industries, a leading plywood manufacturer currently using soy-based adhesives in their products, led to materials supply, information exchange, and technical support. One of the biggest technical hurdles over the past few months has been increasing the protein dispersibility index (PDI) of DDGS material to be comparable to soy proteins. The higher the PDI, the more spreadable the adhesive becomes, allowing for higher solids content which leads to a stronger bond. After a series of experiments, we were able to develop a processing protocol which allows for near-soy level effective PDI, and inclusion of this processed DDGS in our adhesive formulation leads to a glue that is comparable to commercially available soy-based industrial wood adhesives. Additionally, our adhesive was certified VOC-free by an independent third-party certifier, under both the EPA-recommended ASTM D6886 standard using gas chromatography, and the more stringent CARB 310 analysis used for consumer products.

While many challenges during development were successfully overcome, there are still a few technical hurdles to achieve full scalability and commercialization of this novel product. First, we will focus on the standardization of adhesive application quantities and ensure application amounts are in line with industry practices. This is a key milestone to achieve suitable COGS. Increasing spreadability, as well as tack and green strength, will further improve the quality of our adhesive. Combatting overcompression in our hot-pressing process is also of concern, but likely will only be able to be dealt with in a larger, industrial setting. Incorporation of supplementary additives to continue to strengthen our adhesive is also of note, as any opportunity to extend adhesive performance while keeping it cost-competitive would be ideal. Finally, we will focus on producing 5- and 7-ply panels, in addition to what we currently produced (3-ply panels). Most commercially available plywood, especially for built environment applications, are either 5- or 7-ply, and we want to ensure our adhesive works in all possible plywood material configurations used as construction materials. Overcoming these challenges represent key technical objectives of the SBIR Phase II project.

In addition to plywood adhesives, a novel process was developed to utilize DDGS’ adhesive power applied to particleboard manufacturing. We have been able to produce particleboard prototypes that pass shear, strain, and flexural tests.

Commercial Porgress

Over the course of the Phase I contract, we made substantial progress in identifying the beachhead market, secured a partnership with an industry player, refined the IP strategy, secured additional funding and identified raw materials suppliers and intermediate processing partners.

Table 2: Summary of Commercialization Milestones

Commercial milestone	Progress to date
Identification of beachhead market	● Identified plywood as key market segment
Partnership with industry leader	● Secured partnership with States Industries
Intellectual property protection	● Conducted full assessment of IP landscape
Fundraising	● Secured additional $75,000 from the state of Massachusetts
Supply chain optimization	● Identified four suitable DDGS raw materials suppliers ● Identified two particle reduction processing partners
COGS analysis	● Performed COGS analysis showing price competitiveness

During the customer discovery process, we identified plywood as the most promising market given its size, competition dynamics and overall need for an innovative, bio-based product. A key validation of the importance of developing a novel bio-based adhesive was provided by the partnership secured with States Industries, a large manufacturer of engineered wood products. States Industries provided key insights into the transition from a proof of concept study toward the creation of a product to meet industry needs. Given the successful Phase I results, States Industries requested to continue the collaboration and expand toward an industrial pilot, aimed at testing the adhesive in their commercial production line. Details of the pilot have been discussed. The industry pilot will consist of 2 parts: 1) lab-scale pilot, where we will test our adhesive on-site at States Industries’ facilities to ensure that it is suitable for large scale production 2) commercial-scale pilot, where a full production run will validate the usability at scale in the main commercial line by producing and testing large plywood panels. If successful, we expect to be able to convert States Industries into our first paying customer.

Throughout the EPA SBIR contract period, we also worked with the TABA consultants to review the IP landscape and define a comprehensive strategy. Their assessment report showed that we have a clear path to expand the current patent estate.

On the funding front, we received a $75,000 grant from the State of Massachusetts, called the MassCEC Catalyst grant, to advance complementary research.

Another key milestone was the identification of suppliers that could provide large quantities of DDGS at a low cost. We secured and tested various DDGS raw materials samples as well as identified intermediate processing facilities for particle reduction.

Finally, we determined precise COGS for our product, which is ~$0.18/lb. Based on competing products, we have demonstrated price competitiveness with current products on the market such as formaldehyde-based (~$0.40/lb) and soy-based adhesives (~$0.80/lb).