Eco-Friendly Adhesives From Vegetable Oils
Eco-Friendly Adhesives From Vegetable Oils
Biological Transformation
Sustainable products, anyone? Yes, please, but a greener way to go is not easy to find for adhesives,
coatings and foams. Eco-friendlier materials made in Fraunhofer labs are heading in the right direction.
Organic products are booming. Factory farms and fields drenched in chemical
cocktails hold little appeal for the many consumers who prefer to see free-
ranging animals in verdant pastures, eat untreated fruit and vegetables, and
wear clothes made of eco-friendly, pesticide-free cotton. This need to go green
is spilling over to other products. But simply replacing synthetic materials with
wood, cork and the like alone is not the answer. For products to be genuinely
sustainable, manufacturers must also use adhesives, paints and foamed plastics
that are made of bio-based feedstocks.
There is a catch, though: The natural raw materials are extracted from vegetable seeds, so their chemical composition may vary
greatly. And that variance is a problem for manufacturers.
Fraunhofer scientists are also using vegetable oil epoxides to develop novel adhesives. All formulations for these adhesives from
the Fraunhofer labs are solvent-free. The researchers are digging deeper to learn what benefits this filler or that additive has to
offer. High electrical conductivity, for example, comes in handy. If an adhesive layer is conductive, it can be heated from the
inside out by applying an electrical voltage, thereby quickly and selectively curing it. Or an additive such as modified thyme oil
could endow the adhesive with antibacterial properties.
Contact
Michael Kraft
Public Relations
www.imws.fraunhofer.de
© 2023
Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft - Eco-friendly adhesives from vegetable oils
Online in Internet; URL: https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/research/key-strategic-initiatives/biological-transformation/eco-
friendly-adhesives-from-vegetable-oils.html
Date: 16.11.2023 09:02