Monique Roerdink Lander, Ph.D.
Post Doctoral Associate
University of Minnesota, Dept of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering

Biorenewable and Biocompostable Acrylate-based Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives

Acrylics have found widespread use in commercial products such as coatings, paints, and adhesives. Thus incorporation of biomass-derived resources as a substitute for petroleum-based materials will make a significant contribution in the development of sustainable products. Renewable materials that are considered for replacing traditional monomers are mostly derived from soybean and other vegetable oils and from starch derivatives (such as lactide). However, these monomers cannot participate in the aqueous polymerization methods typically used to prepare acrylics without chemical modification to introduce reactive double bonds. The biomass content of products obtained from copolymerization of such functionalized renewable and acrylate monomers is often limited by the poor miscibility of the biomass monomers with acrylates. In this presentation an alternative route for incorporating high amounts of biomass in acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) is described. By using a low glass transition, polylactide-based/acrylic macromonomers, PSAs containing more than 50 wt% biomass content were generated that demonstrate excellent adhesive properties. Also being explored is the incorporation of biomass directly in the polyacrylate backbones. In addition to replacing petroleum-derived acrylate monomers, degradation of these biorenewable linkages segments polyacrylate chains into short fragments that are in turn susceptible to biodegradation. The work described here are examples of novel yet pragmatic approaches to develop sustainable PSA formulations through relatively simple modifications of successful commercial products.