Henkel’s Adhesives and Additive Manufacturing Recycling Focus

Henkel has announced a partnership to enhance recycling in additive manufacturing.

The company is best known for its adhesives, sealants, and functional coatings. As with many materials operations, Henkel has also been broadening its portfolio to enter into 3D printing. Offering materials since 2016, Henkel continues to increase its participation. Most recently that was through an announced partnership with Origin.

This week, timed nicely with yesterday’s Earth Day celebration, Henkel announced that it was building on its Recycling Program, now offering recycling options for its Loctite brands in additive manufacturing.

Sustainability initiatives are critical at this early age in 3D printing. Many companies, especially on the materials side, are focusing significant resources in establishing recycling and other sustainably-minded offerings. By creating them in early days of this industry, they can become foundational in the end-to-end business of additive manufacturing.

The Henkel Recycling Program is run through a partnership with TerraCycle. In addition to Loctite adhesives, it now also includes Loctite 3D printing resins.

Building upon what they call the first anaerobic adhesive packaging recycling solution, Henkel and TerraCycle now accept used containers of UV-curable 3D printing resins as well as cyanoacrylate-based adhesives. Recycling boxes are designed for placement convenient to where the materials are used, and once full just need to be sealed up and shipped back; they are postage-paid for even further convenience.

While the process will naturally be a bit different for the resins, the current recycling workflow for adhesives includes, once TerraCycle receives the adhesive recycling boxes:

• Adhesive Packaging is cryogenically or thermally treated in order to deactivate the adhesive

• Material is melted into sheets

• The sheets are shredded and pelletized

• Pellets are turned into new products

“Through the Adhesive Recycling Program, Henkel is offering its customers with 3D printing operations a unique opportunity to divert this hard-to-recycle industrial waste from landfills. We look forward to growing this revolutionary program, and continuing to provide consumers with a powerful, sustainable option to reduce their environmental impact,” said TerraCycle Founder and CEO Tom Szaky.

Via Henkel