Talking about sustainability always arouses certain misgivings of green washing, but at FENOQUÍMICA we have been applying recycling and reusing materials for more than 30 years. In fact, when the UN established the sustainable development goals in 2015, we had already been implementing SDG 13, Climate Action, for 25 years.
According to data from the INE, in 2024, 180,000 tons of wood and 100,000 tons of nut shells were discarded as waste in Spain. Transforming this waste into raw material and reusing it into our phenolic molding compounds is a key element in the circular economy and therefore, in reducing the carbon footprint.
Circular economy
Sustainable Projects
- Thinking about the future and trying to reduce the more than 800,000 tons of clothing discarded per year in Spain, FENOQUÍMICA’s R+D department has established raw material recovery projects, such as the agreement reached with RECOVER, a producer of recycled cotton fibers from waste (post-industrial and pre and post-consumer) from the denim textile industry. With these fibers, FENOQUÍMICA seeks to increase the mechanical properties of its phenolic molding powders.
- But we are not only looking for the recycling of plant-based compounds, but we have also recently launched a collaboration project with B-Circular, a spin-off of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), which is dedicated to the development and exploitation of technologies for the recycling of composite materials. The aim is to reintroduce high value-added materials into the value chain, such as glass fibers from wind turbine blades or carbon fibers from surpluses from the aeronautical industry. B-Circular has a process in which they recover fibers while maintaining up to 90% of their mechanical properties. Fenoquímica is studying how to transform these fibers into a viable product for industrial use.
- FENOQUÍMICA knows that research and sustainability must go hand in hand. That is why we participate in various research projects on the recovery of agricultural waste with the Biotechnology and Agricultural Bioeconomy Unit of the UNIVERSITY OF LLEIDA. We have been involved in the trials of Revaluation of by-products and material of little value of agri-food origin led by Dr. Anna Canela Xandri and Valorization of wood lignocellulose through the preparation of probable commercial compounds by Dr. Gemma Villorbina Noguera.
Using recycled materials
Our goal is clear; Manufacture phenolic molding powder using recycled materials that help minimize environmental impact, but maintaining the highest quality standards in mechanical, thermal and processability properties.
Since sustainability is a hallmark of FENOQUÍMICA, we not only limit ourselves to the use of vegetable raw materials and remnants in our phenolic molding powders, being able to accredit, through the external certifier SGS, that the material has more than 50% biogenic origin, but in 2022 we installed solar panels as a sign of our environmental commitment and since 2024 we have been manufacturing our material with PEFC certified raw material.
