The pure recovery of materials from bonded composite materials presents a significant challenge for an efficient circular economy, particularly in light of the ever-growing variety of plastics in composite materials.
The goal of this subproject is to develop conceptually new adhesive systems that enable easy recycling of bonded materials and facilitate the return of individual components to the value chain. Additionally, the adhesive should primarily be based on renewable raw materials or agricultural by-products.
The bonding of the adhesive developed in MultiGlue to the material surface, adhesion, is mediated by highly selective and firmly anchored anchor peptides, which are conjugated to highly charged biobased polymers; the latter, together with surfactant molecules, form coacervates, enabling strong cohesion. By incorporating functional additives and stimulus-responsive building blocks, the adhesive performance is modulated or can be reversibly switched on and off by an external stimulus, such as temperature, light, or mechanical force.
The developed MultiGlue adhesive will offer a bonding performance comparable to commercial cyanoacrylate-based superglues, but with the crucial advantage that the bonded materials can be selectively separated and recovered during the recycling process.
