Cambond Ltd is a new Cambridge tech-company working on ‘green’ adhesives for industry. The company makes low carbon adhesives from biomass feedstocks and provides a way to manufacture ‘green’ sustainable adhesives in a cost effective manner world widely. The company has been set up by two Cambridge based entrepreneurs Drs Xiaobin Zhao and Gareth Roberts.
Glue (adhesives) are a core industrial commodity used extensively in the construction, packaging, automotive and aerospace industries. Adhesives are a global £34 Billion market (for 2013) and over 13 million tonnes of adhesives are manufactured each year.
Existing (phenol-formaldehyde, urea-formaldehyde based) adhesive chemistry is derived from oil and there are concerns about sustainability. Whilst there is a desire in the industry to be ’greener’, current substitutes of formaldehyde based adhesives have either technical or cost issues.
Cambond’s proprietary technology makes low carbon, sustainable adhesives from biomass (algae and by products of bioethanol fermentation and others) feedstocks and provides a way to manufacture formaldehyde-free ‘green’ adhesives in a cost effective manner:
Cambond has been collaborating with Dareglobal Wood Group (Asia’s leading manufacturer of plywood and MDF products). The project has been successful in using ‘green’ adhesives to make wood based products suitable for the construction industry in a prototype manufacturing plant.
- Biomass-based ‘green’ adhesives could capture a significant part of a £34Bn market especially for wood based products..
- · These adhesives could provide the UK and China with a global lead in ‘green’, low carbon adhesives
- ‘Green’ adhesives have enourmous environmental and commercial advantages over the entire adhesive lifecycle from sustainability of feedstocks, safety of the products and ease of recycling.
Dr Xiaobin Zhao commented ‘we have been very excited by working with Dareglobal, their broad vision and commitment has meant this project has moved very quickly from planning to making fibreboards with biomass based adhesives in a very short time’.
Mr Zhen Ning, Director for Dareglobal Wood Panel Research Centre said “we have been working with Dr Zhao on the bioadhesives since last year and we have made significant progress on processing fibreboard using the KQ-SERIES ”green glue”. This will have big impact on the improvement for both working and living environment in green construction industry. Next stage, we are going to move to scaled-up manufacturing of fibreboard with this green bioadhesives. This will further demonstrate our commitment in protecting the global environment by international collaboration using advanced clean technology”.
Notes to editors
More information: Gareth Roberts Cambond Ltd 07779257636 Dr Xiaobin Zhao 07507949517
- Cambond is a finalist in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technology Competition.This competiton on 25th June in Burlington House London showcases the latest technologies in the chemical sciences with significant potential impact for the UK economy. The Competition Final event is open to anyone with an interest in innovation and commercialisation. More information see www.rsc.org .
- Dareglobal Wood Group is based in Danyang, Jiangsu, China. Derglobal is a public listed company in china and working on MDF fibreboard and Plywood. It is the No one biggest company in wood panel manufacturing in Asia and No 10 in the world.
- Cambond can be contacted through Dr. Gareth Roberts 07779257636, groberts@cambond.co.uk
