Fredrik Malmfors, CEO at Lignin

Every month, we present 5 facts about a member of European Bioplastics. This time, Fredrik Malmfors, CEO at Lignin, shares some interesting insights on the company.

5 Facts about Lignin

Lignin Industries was founded in 2018 by Christopher Carrick, a fifth-generation forest industry researcher with a PhD in chemistry. In 2020, the current facility based north of Stockholm international airport was inaugurated and has a production capacity of 2000 tons/yr. The company currently has about 20 FTEs and plans to expand rapidly over the coming years. Lignin – both from forest and agricultural backgrounds being available at over 100 million tons per year – is used as the raw material which is then mixed with bio-oil before going through a reactive extrusion process. The Thermoplastic material Renol® is the result and can be used across a wide variety of plastics. Our 3rd party-verified LCA shows a cradle-to-gate value of -1,9 kg CO2 eqv/kg.

Since early 2024, Lignin Industries is commercial and has started selling products in the ABS and PE spaces. Current applications are eCom packaging, different ABS moulds (vacuum cleaners, EV charging cases, heat pumps etc). Contracts on PP will be in effect during Q2 2024. Renol® mixed with different plastics is recyclable in standard recycling processes (NIR, sink and float).

The technology has a homogenizing effect on different types of Lignins meaning that Lignins from various processes can be used to produce Renol©. The Lignin industries team has worked hard to make sure that the production process is running under standard plastics extrusion conditions. This has led to a highly processable material (true drop-in) that can be scaled using the same type of extruders that are in abundance in the plastics industry. “This means that scaling our capacity is less CAPEX-demanding than is typically the case for biobased materials.”

“Producing Renol® is resource efficient. Water and land usage is low, there is no competition to food production, and our yield is almost 100% – the only thing lost in the process is some percentage points of water evaporating when run through the extruder. On top of this, extrusion is a relatively energy-efficient process.”