Sorghum Protein Adhesives from Low Cost DDGS

In the United States, annual demand for adhesives and resins exceeds 20 billion pounds. Currently, most adhesives used in the wood industry are petroleum-based, such as phenol-formaldehyde and urea-formaldehyde adhesives. Formaldehyde emissions cause many environmental and health issues. Development of biobased adhesives not only significantly impact a >$100 billion industry sector, but also solve the environmental issues related to volatile organic compounds (VOC) emission and reduce our relying on petroleum-based feedstocks with carbon reduction benefits. Currently, numbers of leading industries are seeking environmental friendly adhesives; however, the major challenge to their switching from petroleum-based to biobased feedstocks is the high cost of biobased feedstocks and enabling technologies to meet their requirements. The sorghum protein adhesives using low cost feedstocks will allow industry to initiate commercialization of the technology developed from this research.