Mass-market product packaging are generally assembled using adhesives formulated from oil-based polymers.

Gluing is a problematic issue in packaging for two major reasons :
• it complicates the paper and board recycling process,
• and may contaminate them with mineral oils, which is particularly problematic for food packaging or hygiene products.

To face these issues, our teams experimented biosourced and recyclable alternatives to heat seal packaging.

They managed to obtain equivalent performance to conventional oil-sourced glue, by coating the packaging surfaces with cellulose nanofibrils, before welding them with ultrasound.

Some obstacles remain to be overcome to establish the proof of concept of a welding machine dedicated to assembling papers on an industrial scale.
Our teams are still experimenting these results, particularly throughthe Ultracell ANR project in partnership with a company.

Glueless packaging is for tomorrow!