BONDIFI is an ambitious, innovative project to build a green chemistry industry in the UK. The project will launch the UK’s first circular economy system for making construction and metal products. Cambond was supported by Innovation & Growth Specialist, Mike Garrick Green to secure the UKRI grant.
The project is an initiative to reduce the carbon footprint in multiple industries through its circular economy system. BONDIFI intends to prime the future expansion and growth of an innovative “green” chemistry industry, combining low carbon manufacturing processes with a sustainable technology base to embed bioresin technology within manufacturing facilities across the UK. The funding has been won in the competition for the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge - Demonstrators awarded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
BONDIFI will deliver a partnership between the UK brewing, foundry, panel and chemical industries, to scale manufacture of sustainable resins and introduce them into the processes of making furniture, construction panels and casting metal.
Resins are critically important chemicals in many manufacturing industries. However, their oil-based and energy intensive manufacture requirements mean products containing resins have a large carbon footprint.
Cambond has invented a plant-based resin system using by-products from the world’s oldest industry - brewing. The environmental impact is as follows:
- Panels and metal products use more than 1.3M million tonnes of resin a year - oil-based carbon emissions of > 4MT CO2e
- Cambond resin replace these with resin made from plant-based brewing by-products
- Cambond’s plant-based resins require 45% less energy per tonne to manufacture
- A further benefit comes from the additional use of brewery and paper mill wastes to partially replace virgin wood
- BONDIFI will create a productive symbiosis between chemical, metals and paper industries and manufacturing – reducing carbon and delivering sustainable products
The £7.3M UKRI project will link Cambond technology to organisations including:
- Foresso and WI International (panel manufacturers)
- Biocomposites Centre, Bangor University (Wales) (global expertise in biocomposites)
- Lunts Castings (leading foundry)
- Materials and Engineering Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University (casting chemistry)
Said Dr Gareth Roberts, Project Director, “This is a very ambitious project to deliver a commercially viable circular economy system, by linking UK entrepreneurship, manufacturing innovation and scientific expertise to existing UK brewing industry excellence.”
Professor Xiaobin Zhao, Cambond CEO, said: “Each partner alone cannot deliver the change needed to decarbonise and transform UK industries. BONDIFI will catalyse change and open the way to massive carbon reductions in manufacturing.”
