SUSBINCO project explored bio-based binders and coatings for a more sustainable future

Several research organisations and in total 11 industrial partners joined forces for the Business Finland Co-Innovation project SUSBINCO (Sustainable binders and coatings) during 2021 – 2024. The main target for the SUSBINCO consortium was to seek out novel and innovative solutions by substituting conventional fossil-based binders and coatings with more environmentally friendly and bio-based alternatives, targeting a vast array of applications ranging from packaging, paints and adhesives to sealants and abrasives.

To revisit the SUSBINCO project and its main outcomes, ExpandFibre team was very happy to invite several key members from the consortium for a reflective discussion. The project’s scientific director Prof. Chunlin Xu from Åbo Akademi University and Aila Maijanen, Head of Bioeconomy at CLIC Innovation, responsible for the coordination of the project, were joined by Riku Talja, Development Manager at Metsä Board, Ann-Sofie Fonsen, Development Director at Boreal Bioproducts, and Jaakko Pajunen, Managing Director, CEO at Borealis Bioproducts.

Looking back with the project coordinator and scientific leader

Aila Maijanen initiated the roundtable discussion on the project: “As of December 2024 all activities for SUSBINCO have been successfully finalised with the key results reported. What’s important to note is that project partners still continue to publish scientific papers related to the project long after its official end. I see this as a highly important phase in the immediate afterlife of the project to exploit the great results we achieved together and not to forget them. Overall, the work of SUSBINCO is seeing excellent continuation in the COCOBIN project, a two year co-innovation project co-funded by Business Finland and coordinated by University of Oulu, with many SUSBINCO project partners also taking part in the initiative. As a key output of SUSBINCO I have to highlight our final report that we prepared in collaboration with the project partners, conveniently documenting all the key results of the project as well as presenting the contact details of project partners in one place.”

Project scientific leader Prof. Chunlin Xu from Åbo Akademi continued from Aila’s assessment: “Looking back, I see SUSBINCO as a great success. When we started working together on the project, we were all “new students”, but we had a solid plan in place, and we certainly learned a lot throughout the project years. Collaboration was exemplary among the project partners and the workflow overall was very efficient. Suberin’s use as a bio-based barrier material was perhaps one of the highlight findings of the project, and seeing it developed from laboratory scale towards piloting was exciting. The collaboration between LUKE and VTT for upscaling is definitely also worth mentioning. Overall Business Finland was very supportive of SUSBINCO, granting us eight-month extension to properly finalise the work.”

Industry support was another key highlight of the project as Chunlin explained: “The industry partners of SUSBINCO were very open minded and actively involved with the work from the very beginning, which I appreciated a lot. The discussions with the industrial partners were frequent and the bi-monthly work package meetings were very effective with the industrial partners taking active roles in them. Often it seems that there is an invisible wall between the researchers and the industrial partners in these collaborative initiatives, but in the case of SUSBINCO the collaboration was very natural and seamless between research and the industry. I also want to point out that SUSBINCO was picked by OECD as one of the ten case studies under the theme of “Unlocking co-creation for green innovation”, which was an extraordinary achievement for us (link to the OECD report from Dec 2023).”

Industrial insights

Riku Talja has a long experience working at Metsä Board, currently focusing on dispersion barrier coatings and assessing potential new alternative materials to be used as functional coatings for paperboards. In addition, Riku is collaborating with a wide range of global suppliers of barrier coating materials. Riku shared his valuable insights of the project: “I was already involved in the planning phase of the project seeing it as a very good fit for Metsä Board’s ideology of exploring more bio-based barrier materials and coatings for our paperboards. I found the multiple discussions between the researchers and industrial partners highly valuable for us, and overall, the project provided our company with a lot of new fundamental knowledge. I fully agree with Prof. Chunlin Xu that the collaboration during SUSBINCO was excellent, and I have to thank Aila and CLIC Innovation for a very good job coordinating the project.”

Jaakko Pajunen and Ann-Sofie Fonsen both represent Boreal Bioproducts, a Metsä Spring portfolio company with a mission to convert forest industry side streams into valuable ingredients for the cosmetics, and chemical industries with its scalable technology based on Pressurised Hot Water Extraction (PHWE).

Ann-Sofie explained: “I joined Boreal Bioproducts roughly in the midpoint of SUSBINCO, so I was unfortunately not able to follow the project all the way from the beginning. In my role I’m focusing on development topics at our Turku pilot plant with a strong emphasis on the utilisation of novel barrier materials.”

Jaakko continued: “We established our pilot-scale plant in Turku in 2021 just as SUSBINCO was gaining momentum. Currently we’re planning to expand our production towards commercial scale with a new industrial installation next to Metsä Group’s Vilppula sawmill in the upcoming years. In order to upscale successfully towards commercial scale there needs to be much more significant market pull with offtake agreements guaranteed from potential clients. In general Business Finland’s funding has been an important subsidy for us as we plan our next steps as a company. For our company SUSBINCO was a really valuable experience as we made very important connections with potential value chain partners in Finland. For example, for us it has been extremely beneficial to learn how a major player such as Metsä Board uses barrier chemicals in their production processes.”

Role of regulation going forward

Regulation is certainly a hot topic, which came up frequently when discussing novel bio-based barriers, binders and coatings with the SUSBINCO partners. Aila offered an example: “CLIC Innovation has been organising project booster and project pitching events throughout recent years with several pitches focusing on bio-based binders. Early on, Markku Leskelä, SVP, Development at Metsä Board, brought up the emerging SUP directive (Single-Use Plastics) and its potential effects on the market. I personally see the bio-based chemicals sector only growing in importance and regulation will most likely pose a lot of uncertainties as we move forward together, whether it’s the SUP directive or PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation). Navigating the different and constantly changing regulations require a lot of knowledge and resilience from all the players in the bio-based chemicals industry.”

Jaakko continued: “Regulation is both a blessing and a curse for us until we get clarity on what is considered as a plastic and what is not. Especially for us as a start-up company, the ridiculously long timelines are a true challenge. We have identified the huge opportunity created by the shift towards more bio-based raw materials, but also the market as a whole is constantly on the search for the silver bullet. Overall to me it seems that the regulation is still strongly favouring established fossil-based industries, encouraging companies to use less sustainable raw materials, which is a shame.”

Riku agreed with Jaakko’s views on the topic: “We at Metsä Board certainly share the same pain related to regulation and its uncertainties, as Jaakko mentioned. The timelines are very long, and there is no certainty regarding which materials are considered as plastics in the next 20 years, for example. Of course, we try our best to not let these issues disturb our work towards more bio-based coating and barrier solutions for our paperboard products.”

Riku continued on the challenge of shifting towards more bio-based raw materials: “I recall when Metsä Group was announcing its sustainability targets for 2030, and we started to have discussions with our suppliers. In the beginning the general consensus from our suppliers was “That’s impossible, it’s not going to happen by the end of 2030”. Currently we see that the change is definitely happening towards more bio-based and renewable materials, but the speed of this change is perhaps not as fast as originally envisioned. I personally think that it’s very important that there are smaller and more agile start-ups that have started to offer alternative solutions for us at Metsä Board. I see that there are still plenty of gaps in the raw material knowledge and SUSBINCO has given us a lot of insight into the development of these new raw materials. It also needs to be noted that the quantities need to be big enough for someone like Metsä Board to proceed in the raw material development process, which can be a major challenge for smaller players. I see that traditional chemical suppliers are also developing their own bio-based alternatives but are often not willing to offer these new alternatives for all interested parties.”

Ann-Sofie agreed: “I very much agree with Riku. There most certainly exists a knowledge gap of how to use these new raw materials and to close this gap we need to communicate effectively and build a better overall understanding on raw material development. Considering these aspects, SUSBINCO has been a success.”

Jaakko concluded: “Of course for us the funding for the pilot plant establishment was an important milestone, but main value from SUSBINCO has come from the development of the value chain. For us the national value chains, such as the SUSBINCO consortium, are very important.”

Åbo Akademi and Metsä Board are both continuing their collaboration in the aforementioned COCOBIN project, while Boreal Bioproducts is continuing their activities within another development initiative under Mirka’s SHAPE ecosystem. CLIC Innovation continues to facilitate open innovation activities to identify new research directions for the development of high value-added bioproducts in line with circular economy principles.

SUSBINCO project fact sheet

Project duration: 01/2021 – 07/2024
Project type: Business Finland Co-Innovation.
Project budget: EUR 10,1 million of which company budget EUR 5,2 million and research institution budget EUR 4,9 million.
Project scientific director: Prof. Chunlin Xu, Åbo Akademi University.
Project coordination: Aila Maijanen, Head of Bioeconomy, CLIC Innovation.
Industry core partners: CH-Polymers, Metsä Board, Mirka, Montinutra, Teknos and UPM-Kymmene
Research institutes: Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT University), Natural Resources Institute of Finland (Luke), Tampere University (TAU), University of Eastern Finland (UEF), University of Oulu (UO), VTT Technical Research Center of Finland (VTT) and Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU).
Collaborative partners: Brightplus, CH-Bioforce, Kiilto, MetGen and Valmet Technologies.

More information:

Project homepage
Project final report published by CLIC Innovation