In the last two decades, timber construction has experienced a resurgence further supporting the wood products industry and innovation in the sector. This is in part due to ambitious policies like “Fit for 55” where the use of bio-based, biodegradable, and regionally produced products within the EU are of great importance. Timber constructions that utilize engineered wood products (EWP) these initiatives and furthermore have proven to have lower embodied carbon footprints when compared to more classic concrete constructions (Wimmers 2017). Adhesives are indispensable components of EWPs as they support the production of homogeneous, dimensionally stable, adaptable in size and shape and utilization of lower quality timber. In the past strong petroleum initiatives, economic advantages and resistance to water were the main advantages of synthetic adhesives which overtook natural adhesives (Frihart 2015) while reports show natural adhesives were used as the oldest generic types of structural adhesives for glued laminated timber (Davis 1997). The importance of biobased adhesives is now growing and as such, countries are looking for local resources that can be used in production of these alternatives. Slovenia and many other European countries have marine industries that generate large amounts of side-streams and by-catch that contain an abundance of protein which can be used for adhesives. Collagen is complex microprotein which covers between 20-30% of proteins found in living organisms and it is also one of the most abundant structural protein in the extracellular matrix of tissues such as skin bones, ligaments tendons etc. (Jafari et al. 2020). Previous research showed protein based adhesives from fish collagen outperformed some other natural adhesives in its shear strength properties (Tsetsekou et al. 2018) but also has a comparable bonding strength to conventional adhesives in the case of wood bonding (Bachtiar et al. 2017). One of the major downsides is its mechanical performance at higher moisture content levels (Wimmer et al. 2013, Bachtiar et al. 2019). These factors were one of the main initiatives for the initiation of the Slovenian research project entitled “Protein-based adhesive for high-performance indoor timber structures” (SEAFARER).
Keywords: adhesive modification, protein, collagen, bio-based
Authors
Jaka Gašper Pečnik
InnoRenew CoE and University of Primorska, Slovenia
Andreja Pondelak
Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute
Branka Mušič
Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute
Marica Mikulian
InnoRenew CoE and University of Primorska, Slovenia
Mariem Zouari
InnoRenew CoE and University of Primorska, Slovenia
Luka Škrlep
Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute
Matic Sitar
Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute
Matthew Schwarzkopf
InnoRenew CoE and University of Primorska, Slovenia
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