‘Gluecose’ will develop fully biobased and safe resins for building and construction materials from carbohydrate-rich agricultural and food side-streams. Specifically, the conversion of crude hexose mixtures into water-soluble early humins with optimal binder functionality is pursued. Gluecose will establish new value-chains for sugar-rich side-streams, will improve sustainable production of biobased thermoset resins and for the development of 100% biobased, formaldehyde-free materials with improved end-of life options for recycling.

The main objective of the Gluecose project is to develop a robust and sustainable technology to convert underutilized carbohydrate-rich agricultural and food side-streams into early-stage humins for valorization as thermoset resins.

The above translates into the following objectives:
- Map carbohydrate-rich feedstocks and side-streams for humin-forward incentives.
- Acid-catalyzed conversion process optimization towards highly functional early humins.
- Expedite technology demonstration by performing scale-up and actual product
development in close collaboration with partners.
- Evaluation of techno-economic feasibility and scalability.

Multiple benefits, and results, are expected across the value chain from side-stream to humin intermediate to resin to final product. For the suppliers of the carbohydrate-rich side streams (ADM, Fibenol) the expected overarching results of this project are the creation of new opportunities to establish novel outlets and value chains based on their feedstocks,
connecting the agriculture, forestry and food processing to the material, building and construction industries (STV, Rockwool). More specifically, expected results will show how the underutilized carbohydrate-rich side stream can be used as a sustainable and more costefficient novel feedstock to produce a new class of sustainable and safe thermosetting resins for material applications. Convertors will benefit from the development of 100% biobased resins, with additional functionality, and end-users (STV, Rockwool) are expected to benefit from the development of sustainable and formaldehyde free end-products, with improved endof-life and recycling options, all while sequestering CO2.