5‐Hydroxymethylfurfural‐Based Adhesives

5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) is often referred to as a "sleeping giant". The term highlights not only the great potential of 5-HMF but also points to the many challenges still preventing its large-scale production. This chapter gives an overview of 5-HMF-based adhesives, focusing on the challenges and the opportunities for 5-HMF, e.g., in terms of its industrial production, the availability of feedstocks, and the most promising derivatives for adhesive applications. 5-HMF shows high potential as a component in adhesive systems. The industrial production is still in its very early stages, which makes in situ approaches for 5-HMF utilization an important possible alternative. Although most of the adhesive systems reported so far were applied under conditions far from, e.g., today's wood composite board production, at least some of the adhesives are used under conditions similar to present fossil-based adhesive systems considering the current industrial production standards.