Sustainable Roofing/Waterproofing Membranes Comprising Lignin

Project Lead: Soprema

Consortium Members: Soprema, FPInnovations, West Fraser, Kruger, Noram Engineering

Project Goal

The goal of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility of using lignin to replace part of the bitumen used for roofing and waterproofing membrane applications.

Soprema and its consortium will achieve this by:

• Characterizing different types of  lignin to identify best candidates
• Testing lignin in membrane systems to identify best candidate
• Conducting complete tests including aging
• Conducting a pre-commercial demonstration
• Conducting cost evaluation and environmental life cycle analysis

Soprema’s brand new plant in Woodstock has been designed for producing more environmentally friendly building material. Commercialization of lignin-based roofing membranes perfectly suits the envisioned activities of this state-of-the-art plant.

Project Updates

October 2022

FPInnovations has developed a process to modify lignin for application in waterproofing products. The process is flexible to different source lignins, with six modified lignins produced to date, containing a 20-40°C reduction in glass transition temperature compared to unmodified lignins. Evaluation of the technical performance of these samples as a partial replacement for bitumen in roofing products is now underway at Soprema.

January 2023

Soprema has completed the preliminary evaluation of the technical performance of 9 different modified and unmodified lignin samples as a partial replacement for bitumen in roofing products. The lignins were tested at substitution rates of 2, 5 & 10%. The results of this evaluation show that lignin acts as a stiffening agent in the blend without having a negative impact on viscosity or low temperature flexibility at substitution rates up to 5%. As a result, some of the modified lignin samples could produce membranes in compliance with the CSA123.23-15 standard.

June 2023

Soprema has completed the preliminary evaluation of the technical performance and aging of 9 different modified and unmodified lignin samples as a partial replacement for bitumen in roofing products. At a 5% substitution rate, the best performance was observed in modified lignin samples produced from high purity Hardwood sourced lignin. After extended accelerated aging, the low temperature and elastic recovery of the modified HW lignin sample was higher than the reference elastomeric thermofusible bituminous binder.

Consortium Members: