Signal · Formaldehyde-free wood bindersPrepared for Hexion · September 2026
Hexion stopped filing on soy adhesives in 2008. Soy is now the fastest-improving binder on the chart.
Hexion sold its formalin business in December 2025 and signed a lignin partnership in June 2025, but around 85% of sales are still formaldehyde-based. The EU limit of 0.062 mg/m³ for panels and furniture came into force on 6 August 2026, with no transition. This is how fast every formaldehyde-free route is improving.
Nine wood-binder routes · all 990 soy patents read in full
The decision
Whether lignin is the right formaldehyde-free bet · partnership signed June 2025
The clock
EU limit of 0.062 mg/m³ in force since 6 August 2026 · no transition period
The map
Nine wood-binder routes, measured on maturity and improvement rate.
The high/low TIR bands split on the median improvement rate of these nine routes (19.4%/yr) — a judgement relative to this domain, not a fixed threshold. Hexion's own UF/MUF/PF route sits exactly on it. The maturity split is TRL 5, the end of validation in a relevant environment. EPI/PUR, binderless and furanic are drawn nudged apart where they overlap, with grey dots at their true positions. Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026.
What the signal shows
The bet19.9 vs 19.4
Lignin is barely ahead of the resin it replaces.
Lignin improves 19.9% a year. Your low-emission UF and PF resins 19.4%. Half a point apart. Koch already holds 16 lignin patents, Stora Enso 24, and Prefere Resins just entered with 7.
The faster route40.3%/yr
Soy is twice as fast, and it is not a lab curiosity.
40.3% a year across 990 patents. Companies own 47% of them, not universities. 38% pass a boil-water test, the exterior-grade test. Exterior and structural plywood grew from 27% of the field to 46% since 2022.
What you left behind2 patents
Soy does not work without a partner resin.
Only 7% of soy patents use soy alone. The rest add epoxy, epichlorohydrin or isocyanate. Solenis has 10 patents here, Cargill 9, Evertree 9, Ashland 8, AkzoNobel 7. Hexion has 2, from 2005 and 2008.
Who holds the patents
Patent families per route — and each route’s biggest holder.
Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026
The orange bar is Hexion’s own route — the biggest field on the chart, led by BASF (58) with Hexion fourth (33). Soy’s 990 families are topped by universities, but companies own 47% of the field — and Hexion holds 2, from 2005 and 2008.
For Hexion
Good news first: pMDI is the slowest route on this chart and the only one falling, so the switch away from formaldehyde is not going there. Your lignin bet is right in kind. It may be wrong in feedstock. Soy improves twice as fast, it is moving into exterior plywood, and it does not work without a partner resin, which is chemistry you already make. Your last soy patent was 2008.
The method, in one minute
What is TIR?
TIR — the Technology Improvement Rate — measures how fast a technology gets better each year, computed from global patent data. Not who is filing, or how much: how fast the route is actually moving. Historically, the fastest-improving technology always wins.
Signal 1 · Cycle time
How many years between one generation of inventions and the next.
Methodology co-developed with MIT — 30 years of peer-reviewed research.
What we could look into next
Three questions this teaser opened.
01
Where lignin comes from
The extraction routes behind Bloom. Which pulping streams are improving?
02
The partner resin
Who supplies the chemistry that makes soy work, and could it be yours?
03
Mass timber
EPI and PUR at 21.1%, ahead of lignin and your resins. A different market.
Pick one, or choose a new topic. We run it as a full proof of concept for you, at no cost.
A free proof of concept, on your question
Pick one question. We run it for free.
Trace the pulping streams behind Bloom, find the partner resin that makes soy work, or size EPI and PUR for mass timber — we run any one as a full proof of concept, at no cost, walked through with our analysts.
