The drive to create more earth-friendly products was on display during the Adhesive and Sealant Council’s Annual Convention & Expo, which took place April 15 to April 17, 2024. Besides panel discussions and presentations that covered sustainability, the three winning developments of this year's Innovation Awards, which were presented at the event, all were connected to sustainability.

D-Glue — a debondable adhesive platform created by Cal Poly Chemistry Professor Phil Costanzo in partnership with the Massachusetts-based company Geisys Ventures — earned the second runner-up 2024 Innovation Awards honor. The glue has applications for uses in electronics, vehicles, solar panels, apparel, and other types of products. The adhesive will make it more convenient and cost-effective to repair, reuse and recycle manufactured products because of its ability to be broken down more easily than many mainstream glue products.

The first runner up award was presented to Bostik for the development of a copolyester-based compostable cold-seal for heat-sensitive packaging. The product, Turbo-Seal® LOOP 1.0, allows packaging designers to create 100%-compostable packaging. It is suitable for medical, food, and cleaning applications, among others. The innovation helps manufacturers answer the call from consumers for more eco-friendly products.

H.B. Fuller and Jayesh Bokria, Thomas Kauffman, Andrew Prybylowski, David McDougall and team were named the winners of the 2024 Innovation Awards for their development of a thermoplastic encapsulant platform for photovoltaic modules. Leveraging underutilized raw material feed streams, the platform is helping meet the demand for clean energy, offering a lower cost of electricity and supply chain versatility while ensuring the critical performance requirements for thin-film modules. In the company’s submission for the award, it stated that a key element in the platform development was the material’s rheological behavior. “The rheology of a hot melt adhesive, used as a PV encapsulant, plays a critical role in ensuring proper production, shipment, vacuum lamination and 25+ year performance of the PV module.” With experimentation, the team found that the correct formulation consisted of a blend of polymers and functional additives, which provide thin-film manufacturers with a product that offers high-performance and is cost competitive.

This issue of ASI looks at new developments and processes that are helping lead to more sustainable products. Included this month is an article about research on using chicken feathers to develop adhesive raw materials, a PFAS-free primer developed by XLYNX Materials, a curbside recyclable tape, and an interview that explains how a raw materials supplier is using information from a life cycle assessment to tackle its Scope 3 emissions reduction targets. If you are interested in submitting information about your sustainable product or process, please email me at Parkerk@Bnpmedia.Com.