Prisma Renewable Composites  and Domtar just announced a new partnership.  It’s good to see Domtar continuing the push for more lignin applications.  This is a great market they’re going after.  Lignin has great potential in composites.  There are some unique benefits that lignin can provide to add value to existing composites, primarily modulus and UV protection. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this partnership in the coming months.

Domtar Takes Next Step in Lignin Development with Prisma

Research continues in creating advanced materials from lignin.  It’s good to see Domtar and the Forest Products Lab push the envelope on lignin-based graphene.  Lignin-based materials could reduce the cost and increase the availability of these advanced materials making broad adoption possible.  It’ll be interesting to see the commercial opportunities that materialize from these developments.

Domtar and USDA Develop Lignin-Based Graphene

Tomorrow is the final day of our the Lignin Chair Kickstarter campaign.  It doesn’t look like we’ll hit our goal of $50k.  I am glad to have the experience though.  What I’ve seen so far is that there is real interest in using lignin in place of traditional plastics.  Interest was garnered from every continent except for Antarctica.  Unfortunately, we did not have the sales and marketing team or the budget to make a hard push into the market place.

My goal in working with lignin was to get the technology to a point where it’s scalable and feasible to use in thermoplastic applications.  I can say with confidence that we have achieved that goal.  While there are some hurdles to reach full commercialization, we have completed most of the heavy lifting.

The lignin resin is a remarkable material and quite aesthetically pleasing.  There are many potential applications for it, perhaps someday that potential will be realized.

Thank you to everyone who pledged.  Your support is sincerely appreciated.

We’re in the final stretch of our Kickstarter campaign, we have 8 days left.  We have broken through the 5% mark and are well on our way to 6% of our goal.  It’s going to be quite a challenge to reach our goal, but it’s certainly possible.

Looking at the numbers, we have a conversion rate of about 3.6% based off video views.  That’s not bad, it’s above average.  The average pledge is about $143.  Based off these figures, we just need to get 9,100 or so more people to see the Lignin Chair campaign.  That’s not an astronomical number, certainly an uphill battle based off what we have so far but doable.  So please share and perhaps we’ll get it in front of enough people.

Thanks to everyone who has supported so far.  It’s been great to see the interest in the Lignin Chair.  Looking at the demographic data, while very limited, is interesting to see broad appeal for the Lignin Chair.  The appeal of the chair seems to transcend generational, ethnic, and regional divisions.  So spread the word and make lignin great!

We have officially reached the halfway point of our Kickstarter campaign and we are a little less than 5% of the way to our goal.  Most pledges for Kickstarter campaigns come during the beginning and the end of the campaign.  We’re going to need a big push at the end of the campaign.  During the middle portion there is a slow trickle of pledges.  That pattern is holding so far.

The Kickstarter experience has been interesting.  There are lots of companies that offer help in pushing out the campaign, for a fee of course.  I have no doubt that they would be able to get more backers and pledges.  However, I really wanted this project to grow organically.  Ideally, all of us that work with lignin would evangelize the wonders of this abundant resource and the idea would stick and spread.  The purpose of the Lignin Chair is to showcase one of the many possibilities of lignin.

It’s not all doom and gloom.  Here are some interesting insights so far.  I thought that the early backers would be mostly, if not all, from my direct network.  Less than half of the backers so far are people I know directly.  I also thought most, if not all, backers would be from North America.  I was pleasantly surprised to get backers from Austria and Germany.

I know the Lignin Chair probably isn’t the most sexy Kickstarter campaign (I mean look at the levitating water one), but it is one of  the most, if not the most, comfortable.

We are now over a quarter of the way through our Kickstarter campaign.  On a linear scale, we should be at around $13k in pledges by now.  Unfortunately, we’re not there.  I know there are several people who said they will pledge but have yet to do so.  We’re not as bad off as it looks, but things need to start picking up.  So please continue to spread the word and encourage others to pledge.

The Lignin Chair is definitely a unique piece.  It’s something no one else in the world can produce because no one else knows how to make the resin.  It can be a statement piece that functions quite comfortably.  It’s a conversation starter.  Who else has a chair that’s made of wood plastic?

Ultimately the Lignin Chair makes more efficient use of already available resources.  Lignin content in wood can be up to 40%.  Creating a useful, high-value material from lignin is inherently resourceful.  Being more efficient and more resourceful are two things I think we can all get behind.

If you’re reading this I’m probably preaching to the choir.   So go out and share this with people who don’t know what lignin is or where it comes from.

We’re into Day 4 of the Lignin Chair Kickstarter campaign, and we have crossed the $2000 mark.  Thank you to everyone who has pledged so far.  Please continue to share the project with others.  Lignin is truly a remarkable material.  It has so much potential and just needs to be showcased.

If you are setting up a new office or facility or remodeling please consider making a pledge for 100 Lignin Chairs.  While the pledge itself is great, having the chairs in high traffic areas is very meaningful.  The more people see the Lignin Chair, the more people will realize the potential of lignin.  The purpose of this project is not so much the Chair, but what it represents.  For so long scientists and engineers have toiled away, frustrated by something so abundant.  The Lignin Chair is the fruit of all that labor.  It is the distillation of those efforts.

We launched our Lignin Chair Kickstarter campaign yesterday.  It’s off to a good start.  We have 10 backers so far and we have over $1000 pledged.  Our goal is $50k so we still have a ways to go.  The first pledge came within the first 10 minutes of the campaign launching.  I have to admit it’s pretty exciting and nerve racking to watch as the future of the Lignin Chair is floating out in cyber space.

We are cautiously optimistic that we’ll meet our goal.  The Lignin Chair is a great product and it’s a great example of the potential of lignin.  Those of us that work with lignin know the trials and challenges that had to be overcome to bring the Lignin Chair to this point.  We’ve worked with numerous partners and manufacturers to make it happen.  Our hope is that the Lignin Chair is only the beginning.  We hope that the Lignin Chair is the flagship product that catapults lignin into the forefront of sustainable advanced materials.

So if you work with lignin or you work in the paper industry, please take a moment to support the Lignin Chair project.

Lignin Chair Kickstarter

Here’s a brief profile on our friends Lignin Enterprises, LLC.  They do good work and have good technology.  The lignin industry is a tight knit community.  We’re all fighting the good fight, and we’re all rooting for each other.

Lignin Enterprises, LLC

The Digest’s 2018 5-Minute Guide to Lignin Enterprises

Lignin has been used as a phenolic replacement for some time now.  Lignin has a high concentration of phenolics so it’s great for this application.  However, there are limitations.  Replacing too much of the phenolics with lignin can affect the curing rate of the resins used for plywood and oriented strand board (OSB).  The economics have to be balanced to ensure that costs are the same or lower with lignin.

Stora Enso launches Lineo – a lignin replacement for oil-based phenol