NEW SUGAR BASED ADHESIVES DERIVED FROM CORN

In Phase I, a new family water-borne latex dispersions were prepared that incorporate the sugar ?dextrose' from corn. Targeting at a minimum the performance of conventional synthetics, these new sugar based polymers have important environmental benefits: they are recycling-friendly, incorporate an annually renewable resource, and contain no volatile organic compounds (VOC's). The sugar is first modified to provide a reactive ?sugar macromer', which is then copolymerized with vinyl monomers, to provide the new sugar based copolymers. We have demonstrated in Phase I that these new copolymers are particulary suitable as pressure sensitive adhesives (PSA) products used for label and lamination applications. The objective of Phase II is to perform engineering scale-up of both the sugar macromer and its copolymers, and to optimize their PSA performance. The process will be scaled-up to provide experimental grades of these new sugar based adhesives up to 50,000 lb/yr. In additional to process development data, the pilot plant would provide the quantities of experimental polymers required for large-scale formulation and sampling to adhesive end- users. Detailed process engineering and economics, including sensitivity analysis, will be performed. In addition, the preliminary data on repulpability testing will be followed up with larger scale pilot trials.