Debondable adhesives use natural ingredients
Sustainable hot melt adhesives herald a new era for adhesives, said Conagen, as it launched debondable hot melt adhesives made using high performance materials from sustainable and natural bio-molecules. The adhesives mean manufacturers can avoid waste and save costs, added the company.
The advantages of high-strength, debondable adhesives can be realised in multiple industries. For example, smartphones and electronics can be repaired effortlessly to be deconstructed at the end of life without damaging components for recovery and recycling rather than being sent to land refills.
The patented debondable hot melt adhesives are stronger than what is used in the market now and can outperform petroleum-based products with a sustainable advantage that saves time, cost and reduces waste, said the company.
Adhesives offer many advantages in joining materials, including the ease of use compared to welding, sealing, distributing stress, and environmental resistance. Currently, manufacturers glue two pieces together and wait for a day to cure the bond. If there are imperfections in the bond, the glued products are thrown away because they cannot be unglued, resulting in time and material waste. Today, most reactive hot melt adhesives rely on post-curing chemistry to develop adhesive strength. A downside is the curing process is irreversible and hinders, if not prevents, debonding.
The ingredients of Conagen’s hot melt adhesives are commonly found in nature and the company said it leveraged its precision fermentation technology to develop sustainable debondable adhesives independent of plant source materials, creating more efficient and sustainable bio-based ingredients than can be achieved with chemically-synthesised versions.
The Conagen adhesive is a cross-linked material designed with reversibility in mind that exhibits the strength of traditionally cured adhesives with the added benefit of transitioning to a flowable material after heating.
The debondable adhesive formulation is suitable for cars, boats, planes, transportation, consumer electronics and appliances, and military and industrial applications.
The company said its adhesive formulation continues to show promise for bonding a wide array of materials, such as metal, plastic, and glass and that it is making it easier for companies to adopt a more natural position in manufacturing while staying true to the long-lasting performance of their products.”
Conagen is a product-focused, synthetic biology R&D company with large-scale manufacturing service capabilities. Its scientists and engineers use the latest synthetic biology tools to develop high-quality, sustainable, nature-based products by precision fermentation and enzymatic bio-conversion. The company focuses on the bio-production of high-value ingredients for food, nutrition, flavours and fragrances, pharmaceutical, and renewable materials industries.
