Lignol Energy Corporation, a a technology company in the advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals sector, recenctly announced that it has received new lignin patent awards. Its wholly owned subsidiary, Lignol Innovations Ltd. (“LIL”) has received notice from the United States Patent and Trademark Office that it has recently issued a patent to LIL covering inventions made in the field of lignin composition of matter. This follows receipt of a recent patent issued in Canada covering similar claims related to the use of lignins in carbon fibre and brings to twelve the number of patents awarded to Lignol to date, including five this calendar year.
These two recently issued patents cover inventions associated with the chemical properties and functional attributes of a wide range of lignin derivatives. Other patents awarded this year have provided added geographic coverage of Lignol’s biorefining process technology-related patents in several countries.
"When producing next generation biofuels from renewable, non-food feedstocks like woodchips, roughly 25% of the output is lignin. Companies can burn the lignin for its calorific value of approximately 5 cents a pound, or utilize Lignol’s technology to realize values of 50 cents to $2 per pound as a substitute for certain petroleum-based inputs in a variety of applications, such as resins, binders, coatings, carbon fibre and thermoplastics”, said Ross MacLachlan, President and CEO.
