Not sticking to the status quo: Meet the start-up using agricultural waste to replace petroleum-based adhesives
The start-up, called BioBond Adhesives, will take waste from the agricultural industry and make non-petroleum, bio-based adhesive products and in turn ‘revolutionise the US$65 billion adhesives market’.
US-based BioBond says that ESG-compliant companies and governments are leading industries away from petroleum-based products and toward truly renewable or biodegradable products.
A future with fully compostable paper and packaging products therefore requires equally sustainable adhesives.
The company uses pressure-sensitive and epoxy-strength biodegradable solutions — made from natural materials that are both inexpensive and plentiful, such as agricultural waste.
The company will partner with various universities to license intellectual property and commercialise those patents into new, bio-based adhesives.
The GFRP fund evaluates intellectual property focused on innovations in the agriculture, food, and protein sectors. The GFRP Fund invests to create new companies formed around research with the greatest chance for broad commercialization. These new companies will be headquartered in rural communities, creating living wage jobs to drive economic growth and development.
“This new investment affirms our commitment to delivering breakthrough technologies that will disrupt the status quo while creating living wage jobs in rural communities,” said Tom Mastrobuoni, Chief Investment Officer of Big Idea Ventures.
Freshly appointed BioBond Chief Executive Officer Marc McConnaughey, added: “The BioBond platform has the potential to accelerate the adoption of bio-based adhesives by providing a bridge between academia and industry.
“By working with universities to commercialise their intellectual property, BioBond can help to bring new and innovative bio-based adhesives to market more quickly which will benefit both the environment, businesses of all sizes, and bring living-wage jobs to rural communities, broadening our innovation economy.”
BioBond follows GFRP’s first company TerraSafe Materials, which was founded earlier in 2023 to take ag waste and turn it into packaging. “BioBond Adhesives is taking agricultural waste from soybean oil, or soy bean protein manufacturing making 100% or nearly close to 100% bio-based adhesives which is unheard of right now,” GFRP’s managing director Frank Klemens told AgTechNavigator. “27% is what people generally call bio-based. That still means you have a lot of adhesive materials coming from the plastic industry.” When these degrade, they “get into our groundwater, landfill and soils where you don't want them to be”, he complained.
The GFRP fund is therefore actively looking at ways to replace environmentally damaging petroleum-based adhesive products with natural ones. “The adhesive area has always been looking for adhesives that are friendly to the environment,” Klemens said. “But even if you look at meat packaging the cellophane still has adhesives on the bottom. That's all plastic based right now and we’re going to convert that into a bio-based product and get things out there that will help the environment.”
The need for holistic solutions in agtech
GFRP aims to be a US$125 million fund and plans to build 30-40 companies in the next five to six years.
Klemens stressed that the agtech solutions it creates must be many sided to be successful. As such, while BioBond will initially target adhesives for the food packaging and agriculture industries, it has scope to expand to other sectors, Klemens believes.
“Adhesives go everywhere: in planes, cars, housing and wood manufacturing. It's important that BioBond can go into different areas such as epoxy adhesives or pressured adhesives, or adhesives in the presence of water – that's huge in the food industry.”
