3 ms·

Not my field by any means, but I think it's primarily to avoid adhesives that are difficult to handle during recycling. Turning the paper molecules into simple

Not my field by any means, but I think it's primarily to avoid adhesives that are difficult to handle during recycling. Turning the paper molecules into simple sugars and using thosr as an adhesive is presumably beneficial because the sugars would easily dissolve in the water when the paper is recycled. Most other industrial adhesives as I understand it are hydrophobic, so aren't as easily removed.

adrian_b 7mo ago
Looks like using expensive technology to provide exactly the same effect that was provided by the cheap starch-based adhesives that were used for paper when I was a child. I really hate the people who have thought that it is a good idea to replace the water-soluble starch-based adhesives that were used for labels on bottles when I was a child with modern adhesives that are insoluble in water and which are a huge PITA if you want to reuse a bottle and you want to remove the labels from it.
- magicalhippo 7mo ago
  No expert but water-soluble adhesives like wheatpaste and such rely on the water getting absorbed or evaporated. In an industrial setting I guess that makes it too slow. Also in an industrial setting I can see an advantage of eliminating an ingredient. As for removing labels off bottles, I seem to recall my grandpa putting the bottles in a bucket of water and washing soda (sodium carbonate), and just letting them marinate for a good while. Wasn't super hard but a bit of a chore like you say.
toss1 7mo ago
True, and this sounds very cool. But might it just be easier to develop and apply similar sugar adhesives, or other compatible or soluble adhesives (in quantities that will not affect the recycling process)? OFC, if you never introduce anything new, it is easier to feel like it is a "pure" process. Yet, what says the heat treatment isn't actually creating new molecules that could be recycling-incompatible, even though they never "add" any new material?
- marcosdumay 7mo ago
  Or we could use the sugar-based adhesives that people have already researched half a millennium ago.

adrian_b 7mo ago

Looks like using expensive technology to provide exactly the same effect that was provided by the cheap starch-based adhesives that were used for paper when I was a child. I really hate the people who have thought that it is a good idea to replace the water-soluble starch-based adhesives that were used for labels on bottles when I was a child with modern adhesives that are insoluble in water and which are a huge PITA if you want to reuse a bottle and you want to remove the labels from it.

magicalhippo 7mo ago
No expert but water-soluble adhesives like wheatpaste and such rely on the water getting absorbed or evaporated. In an industrial setting I guess that makes it too slow. Also in an industrial setting I can see an advantage of eliminating an ingredient. As for removing labels off bottles, I seem to recall my grandpa putting the bottles in a bucket of water and washing soda (sodium carbonate), and just letting them marinate for a good while. Wasn't super hard but a bit of a chore like you say.

toss1 7mo ago

True, and this sounds very cool. But might it just be easier to develop and apply similar sugar adhesives, or other compatible or soluble adhesives (in quantities that will not affect the recycling process)? OFC, if you never introduce anything new, it is easier to feel like it is a "pure" process. Yet, what says the heat treatment isn't actually creating new molecules that could be recycling-incompatible, even though they never "add" any new material?

marcosdumay 7mo ago
Or we could use the sugar-based adhesives that people have already researched half a millennium ago.