Sustainable adhesives and coatings containing lactide-based macromonomers

Overview

This technology offers a renewable approach to pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) and coatings by substituting lactide-based macromonomers (MMs) for traditional soft monomers such as n-butyl acrylate and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate. The resulting hybrid materials combine acrylic backbones with renewable MM pendant groups, producing adhesives that match or exceed the performance of commercial benchmarks while enabling high or full biodegradation through targeted fungi species. Performance can be tuned by adjusting biomass composition, structure, and MM content, and the underlying chemistry is transferable to a broad range of coating materials beyond adhesives.

Technical specifications

• Lactide-based macromonomers serve as drop-in replacements for conventional soft acrylate monomers in standard PSA and coating formulations.
• Supports both latex (emulsion) and thermoplastic (hotmelt) coating formats.
• Tight control over MM size, structure, and microstructure through reaction components, conditions, and feed strategies.
• Target MM substitution levels of 50–80 wt% in standard PSA recipes.
• Performance validated through standard tack, peel, and shear testing.
• Compatible with traditional monomers (e.g., acrylics) and easily adapted to other coating systems.
• Designed for fungal biodegradation, with ongoing screening to identify capable fungi species.

Technology readiness level

The technology has been demonstrated in both latex and thermoplastic pressure-sensitive adhesive formats, with generated adhesives matching or exceeding commercial adhesive performance. Current development is focused on optimizing formulations for specific applications, expanding MM content and structural variations, and identifying fungi species capable of degrading the hybrid adhesive polymers. The approach is positioned for further scale-up and application-specific validation, with strong potential for commercialization in sustainable adhesives and coatings markets.