A New Shift towards Improved Sustainability at Gellner Industrial
Sustainability has become a major driving force across many industries, including the material sciences and chemical production industries. Chemical manufacturers and their customers alike are looking for safer and more sustainable sources for their products, both to improve their impact on the environment and the safety of the end-use products, be it materials, coatings, inks, polymers, or some other product.
Gellner Industrial has long been a premiere manufacturer of water-based acrylic polymer emulsions and solutions, but we’ve also recently started looking into biobased monomers to improve our company’s sustainability. The challenge we had was in finding a biobased monomer that not only came from a sustainable source, but also adhered to the high performance standards that we have for all of our products.
What does biobased mean?
Often, words like biobased and biodegradable are thrown around together, even used interchangeably despite each one meaning something entirely different. The word biobased simply refers to a material that is intentionally made partially or entirely from living organisms or their byproducts. These sources can be plants, animals, enzymes, and microorganisms. Biobased materials were originally developed to be renewable, and thus more sustainable alternatives to traditional materials, and today encompass a wide range of products like biobased plastics, biobased chemical fibers, biobased material additives, and most important for our purposes, biobased polymers.
Biobased materials aren’t inherently biodegradable, which refers to materials that can be broken down by organisms in the environment and reabsorbed into the natural lifecycle without causing harm. However many of them are biodegradable, and many researchers and developers continue to find new ways to make biodegradable and biobased materials.
How Gellner is looking into biobased solutions for our polymers
In order to improve the safety and sustainability of our products, Gellner’s team has been looking into a variety of biobased monomers to serve as the building blocks for our water-based acrylic polymers. As we mentioned before, the challenge is to find a good monomer that is both biobased and high performance–and we’re getting very close.
Recently, we’ve started working with a biobased monomer that is designed for both standard and high-performance applications in adhesives and coatings. The resulting polymer shows excellent weatherability and shear resistance, and is proving to be an excellent alternative to traditional fossil-based monomers. As we continue to find new ways to improve our sustainability and the value that we offer our customers, we will continue to keep you updated.
Looking for an expert in water-based acrylic polymers?
Gellner Industrial, LLC is the leading manufacturer of water-based acrylic emulsions and solutions for a wide range of high-performance applications. Head over to our website to view all of our products!