Bio-based Materials

Hydrocarbon feedstocks have dominated as industrial inputs over the past century, but as petroleum reserves decline, renewable biomass feedstocks are being asked to meet the global consumer need. Wood waste streams can be reprocessed into many durable building materials. Opportunities exist to replace non-sustainable, valuable feedstock with a sustainable, low-value waste stream in nearly every category of building materials. Increased consumer demand for environmentally benign products are resulting in numerous opportunities for bio-based materials in the marketplace (Narayan 1994).

The following is a partial list of bio-based materials that are currently on the market. As university and industry directed research and development continues, we discover new and amazing substitutes for traditional petroleum based products at a rapid rate.

• Pellets
• Char
• Glass Aggregate
• PHA Polymers
• Anaerobic Digestion Effluent
• Bioplastics
• Biopolymers