Henkel and Covestro cooperate for the sustainability of adhesives for timber components

The German chemical companies Henkel and Covestro are joining forces to promote the sustainability of adhesives in load-bearing timber construction. Such elements, such as cross-laminated timber or glulam, can be found in a variety of interior and exterior building applications, from stairs to facades and load-bearing components. For this purpose, Covestro Henkel provides polyurethane-based materials. These are based on bio-attributed raw materials that are assigned using mass balancing. Henkel then uses these for high-performance adhesive solutions.

“Cooperation along the value chain with like-minded partners is the key to enabling a circular and climate-neutral world. Materials play an important role in this – for example when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of buildings,” says Dr. Thomas Roemer, Head of the Coatings and Adhesives business unit at Covestro.

Materials are important for sustainability

Adhesives play their part in the use of wood in the construction sector – and make buildings more sustainable. As wood is a natural material, its properties are just as naturally subject to greater fluctuations than most synthetically produced materials. For example, it is susceptible to deformation, which affects its aesthetics and functionality and therefore its use in load-bearing or other demanding applications. This is solved by technologies and processes for bonding different layers of wood, such as cross-lamination or finger-jointing, using polyurethane adhesives. This makes it possible to produce wooden panels that retain their strength, shape and functionality over time. The increased use of alternative raw materials can therefore further improve the carbon footprint of these materials.

“This is another step towards an increasingly sustainable and circular future. Thanks to our collaboration with Covestro, we are able to produce and offer two of our best-selling polyurethane adhesives using alternative raw materials. In addition, and by applying the mass balance approach, the properties and certifications of the adhesives’ load-bearing capacity are maintained,” says Dr. Claudia Meckel, Head of Product Development of the Engineered Wood business unit at Henkel.

According to Covestro, broadening the raw material base with bio-based or recycled solutions is an important part of this endeavor. Since alternative raw materials are mixed with conventional raw materials at various points in the chemical production process and it is then difficult to clearly allocate them to individual products, the alternative raw material used is allocated to the end products using the mass balance approach. This is a method that makes it possible to mix traditional and alternative raw materials during production, but to document them in accounting terms across all processing steps and thus allocate them to products. The accuracy and conformity of this approach is externally certified by the internationally recognized ISCC PLUS standard. For the wood adhesive, all Henkel and Covestro sites and partners involved are certified to this standard.