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BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram

CIOL – sustainable impregnation for the future

Alternative title: CIOL - bærekraftig impregnering for fremtiden

Awarded: NOK 1.7 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

337017

Application Type:

Project Period:

2022 - 2024

Funding received from:

Organisation:

CIOL® is a new, low cost, non-toxic wood modification system, needed to replace traditional and non-sustainable alternatives with great potential for CIOL AS and industrial partner involved. It’s important to find sustainable, environmentally friendly alternatives to heavy metals and biocides. As creosote is already banned in several countries, authorities are now looking for new solutions to also avoid the use of copper and biocides in treatment of wood products and the release of these substrates into the environment. Copper, a heavy metal, is widely used to protect wood from biological attacks and to increase the longevity of wood. The use of copper is currently being evaluated by the Biocide Directive in the EU, who have expressed a strong need to replace copper with environmentally safe alternatives. Copper pollution in places like Europe is a large and growing problem – due to the use of copper as an active biocide, but also because of leakage from products where copper is not fixated or naturally broken down. In addition, there is a growing discussion in the field – as almost 80% of todays approved wood protection solutions contain copper and have to be replaced to avoid further soil pollution. Concrete, steel and plastics are alternative materials to modified wood, but all are far less sustainable and non-CO2-friendly in both production and use. The modification by pressure impregnation of wood with CIOL®, from non-fossil sources, will significantly improve wood properties and the climate footprint of protected wood. Together with our first customer, the partner in the project, and R&D provider NIBIO will this project allow CIOL AS to demonstrate and validate the technology and the company’s business model. CIOL AS will deliver specific retrofitting of existing copper impregnation facility, implement partner-specific curing process and the use of our proprietary CIOL® concentrate to produce a sustainable product for the future.

CIOL® is a new, low cost, non-toxic wood modification system, needed to replace traditional and non-sustainable alternatives with great potential for CIOL AS and industrial partner involved. It’s important to find sustainable, environmentally friendly replacements to heavy metals and biocides. In the new European Bauhaus, Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the European commission, talks about how new living environment should be beautiful, sustainable together, which is also the essence of CIOL®. This project goal is to change the value chain of timber treated for outdoor uses from being based on heavy metals to environmentally friendly substances obtained from biological sources. One of the major innovations in this project is not to build a new factory, but to modify existing facilities from heavy metal based substrates to CIOL®. By doing so, we can have an end product price that will drive the end-use-customer from products containing heavy metals to CIOL® products, and a much faster implementation of the products to the marked. Research results from NIBIO, the inventors of CIOL® and global leaders in CIOL® research since 2018 have shown great potential, and has now been exclusively licensed out for commercial exploitation to CIOL AS. Together with our first customer, the partner in the project, and R&D provider NIBIO will this project allow CIOL AS to demonstrate and validate both the licensed technology and the company’s business model. CIOL AS will deliver specific retrofitting of existing copper impregnation facility, implement partner-specific curing process and the use of our proprietary CIOL® concentrate to produce a sustainable product for the future. This will be done by retrofitting of impregnation autoclave to withstand pH of CIOL® solution, followed by the construction of a standalone high temperature kiln (oven) run mostly on energy already produced at the sawmill. All these processes will be monitored by ambitious and necessary R&D methods.

Funding scheme:

BIONÆR-Bionæringsprogram