Boreal Bioproducts, a biorefinery start-up, uses industrial side streams, such as sawdust and bark, to create green chemicals for adhesives, coatings, personal care products and composite materials. It aims to replace chemicals and is targeting companies in the coatings, polymer, paint, adhesives, leather and animal feed sectors.
“We offer functional benefits beyond traditional biofillers, advancing sustainable manufacturing and enabling industries to transition to a renewables based and circular economy,” says CEO Jaako Pajunen.
The Finnish startup’s approach– as well as those of other European startups working on converting wood waste into renewable carbon alternatives- could underpin a biomaterials economy in which everything from packaging materials to adhesives and plastics are built from biomass rather than fossil feedstocks.
Founded in 2018, Boreal Bioproducts emerged from extensive research conducted by leading forest industry companies and several Finnish universities into hot water extraction technologies and biomass fractionation. It currently sources wood residues from a large Finnish sawmill owned by Metsä Group, a Finnish forest industry group that operates in international markets, and also partners with CMPC, one of South America’s largest forestry groups.
Using fractionation, the Finnish startup separates sawdust and bark into their natural components: hemicellulose, lignin, and lignocellulose.
Traditionally, the focus has been on the utilization of cellulose from wood, but the possibility of utilizing the rest – hemicellulose and lignin – which make up over 50% of wood content, has been limited, says Pajunen. Boreal Bioproducts enables the broader utilization of hemicellulose and lignin extracts by developing biochemicals out of them, turning these previously underused side streams into mainstream materials while substantially increasing the value of the raw material, he says.
The production process is based on pressurized hot water extraction and does not include any chemical solvents. “We only use water – there is no chemical used in the process,” says Pajunen. “Think of it as a hardcore rice cooker.”
As the technology is based on renewable energy, and the water and energy used in the process is recovered, the environmental footprint is minimal, he says. Boreal is currently undergoing third party review of its Life Cycle Assessment.
Beyond the raw materials it produces, the Finnish startup develops applications both independently and in collaboration with partners. Depending on the use case the raw materials can be purified further and made into either a dry powder or a water-based solution.
The packaging market is one of its targets. The European Union is pushing for non-plastic coatings “and there is a desperate need for bio-based solutions,” says Pajunen. Boreal Bioproducts’ raw material, SpruceSugar, can be used to make a non-plastic barrier coating that helps to preserve foods and ingredients.
Plastics substitution is a key focal point for the coatings industry, with developments such as coated lightweight paperboard and molded fiber formats replacing PET in ready-to-eat meals and food service markets. The market for functional and barrier coatings on paper and board packaging is showing sustained solid growth, and is forecast to reach $11 billion in 2028, according to Smithers, a U.S.-based market consultancy and custom research firm.
Boreal is also utilizing the bark of the tree to create compounds such as SpruceTannin, which can be used in sustainable tanning of leather.
Boreal Bioproducts, which has so far raised a total of €4.76 million and operates a pilot scale production facility, is now laying the groundwork for industrial-scale production of its different products. It has already secured binding offtake agreements as well as several letter of intent and is currently raising a new round of financing. Boreal plans to have the first industrial scale and commercially viable plant ramp-up in 2027 at the Vilppula sawmill in Finland. The timing is dependent on how quickly the company can raise additional funds, Pajunen says.
Other companies working on turning wood residue into biomaterials include Estonia’s Fibenol. Its products include a hardwood extrusion-based lignin, an organic polymer that the firm has branded as Lignova, and that can be processed into biochemicals, coatings, adhesives, resins, and other materials. The company also offers lignocellulosic sugars, that can be used for fermentation into biofuels, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, as a sustainable alternative for substituting agricultural sugars.
Sweden’s Lixea has also developed a process to produce fundamental chemicals from biomass sources. The heart of the company’s process is a solvent, called an ionic liquid, that was developed at the UK’s Imperial College’s Department of Chemical Engineering and claims to be less harsh and more recyclable than volatile organic solvents. Lixea was recently awarded a €21.5 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund which will be used, in part, to build a pre-commercial demo plant.
Pajunen says Boreal Bioproducts’ differentiator is that it is the only company transforming wood residue into biomaterials using only water. “Our approach is robust, scalable, simple to understand and there are no difficult chemicals to be recycled,” he says.
To access more of The Innovator’s Startup Of The Week articles click here.
This article is content that would normally only be available to subscribers. Sign up for a four-week free trial to see what you have been missing.
