Kiilto‘s flagship innovation making circularity not just possible, but easy and energy-efficient
Kiilto‘s Debonding on Demand (DoD) technology builds on decades of excellence within the field of industrial and construction adhesives, while ushering in a new era of circular innovations. With its heat-based debonding technology, DoD enables the controlled disassembly of elements, making their indefinite reuse possible.
How does it work?
Like traditional adhesives, binders based on the DoD technology are strong and preserve their adhesive properties under the same stresses that their traditional counterparts are subjected to. However, unlike traditional adhesives, due to its innovative chemical composition, the binder only preserves its adhesive properties until the desired level, which is usually 10-20 °C above the maximum operating temperatures (MOT). Thus it still provides the same functions, under the same conditions, but requires less energy to loosen the adhesive bonds than traditional adhesives.
The introduction of energy into the bonding system, either in the form of heat or through microwaves, once the temperature reaches pre-defined desired threshold above the MOT, the binder loses most of its adhesive strength. This enables the controlled debonding and disassembly of elements without damaging them, which means that they can be reused indefinitely, making circularity not just possible, but easy and energy-efficient.
See the debonding on demand technology in action:
Applications
Furniture
What to do with broken or out-of-fashion furniture is an age-old question. While for us, replacement is the obvious answer, previous generations invested in the maintenance and repair of their furniture, conserving not just the natural resources and the environment, but their own financial resources, by working with what they already had on hand. This conservation of resources is what DoD can offer when it comes to furniture.
“Are gray laminated dressers going out of fashion? Just heat up and debond the laminate and replace it with the desired color or pattern. This way, you can give a new life to your dresser. But don’t throw out the laminate, you can reuse that when it makes a comeback.”
Sally Sales – DoD Advertisement from 2030
Construction
Currently, our construction methods don’t favour the deconstruction of buildings element-by-element, thus making the retrieval and reuse of materials difficult, if not outright impossible. However, if we were to use a mortar or adhesive based on DoD technology, once the building reaches the end of its lifetime, or is in need of a renovation to bring it up to new standards, its elements could simply be debonded, and the building disassembled.
This would make the replacement of individual parts, as well as the reuse of building materials possible, eliminating the large piles of construction waste generated by the demolition of buildings.
Interior Surfaces
Renovations need to happen at an increased rate to keep up with increasing standards in building regulations, not to mention that the majority of the building stock was constructed during the post-war reconstruction, and thus are reaching the end of their lifetimes. This is triggering the greatest opportunity for making our built environment sustainable in two generations, otherwise known as the Renovation Wave. This means that building structures and interior surfaces all across Europe will have to be replaced, which could allow us to integrate modularity into our everyday environment.
Kiilto’s Example: DoD tile adhesive
Since our expertise is also in bathroom products, such as sealants and tile adhesives, we went ahead and created the first debondable tile adhesive. While normally, tiles have to be chiseled off the wall, thus breaking the tile and damaging the underlying layers, with DoD, they can be safely removed, thus allowing for the reuse of tiles, as well as the more resource-efficient renovation of tiled surfaces.
The (hopefully not so) Distant Future: Electronics
With the dawn of the digital age, as well as the exponential growth of computing capabilities, electronics need to be replaced every few years, which could shorten to months in the future. This is a problem, as motherboards and other components are made of fossil-based materials like plastics, as well as precious metals like gold, which should be recycled at a much higher rate than they are right now.
However, without the ability to disassemble these components, recycling efforts usually rely on melting the entire electronic component and trying to extract the raw materials. With a DoD-based electronics adhesive, we could potentially reuse redundant electronics, easing the transition to a fully digitalised economy by increasing the material supply through reuse and recycling.
Other applications
The examples above are just a few examples of where the DoD technology can be utilised. If you have any other ideas, or specific needs where you would like to use our technology, don’t hesitate to contact us. We want to be able to help you introduce circular processes into your manufacturing processes, and will surely be able to work something out together.
Still not convinced? Watch the full pitch of our Chief Ecosystem Officer, Raija Polvinen
Contact
Raija Polvinen, Chief Ecosystem Officer
raija.polvinen@kiilto.com
+358 40 081 8833
– “Together we can revolutionise the built environment”
