Adhesives made from captured CO2 emissions

Henkel Corporation, a global leader for adhesives, sealants and functional coatings, and Celanese Corporation, a global chemical and specialty materials company, have announced a partnership to enhance circularity in emulsion production by utilizing carbon capture-based materials.

Earlier this year, Celanese launched a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project at its Clear Lake, Texas site as part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. The CCU technology captures industrial CO₂ emissions and, using hydrogen, converts them into methanol, which forms 35% of vinyl acetate monomer – a crucial element to produce polymers often used in adhesive formulations.

Through this collaboration, Henkel will now produce water-based adhesives made from captured CO₂ emissions, creating new opportunities for customers in the packaging and consumer goods sector to increase the renewable content of their products by keeping CO₂ emissions in the production loop. As consumers and the market continue to demand products with lower environmental impact, these CCU-based adhesives will play a crucial role in driving sustainability across a wide range of applications. The Paper & Board, Envelopes & Graphic Arts, E-commerce, Labeling and Tissue & Towel industries can particularly benefit from CCU adhesives and the Henkel and Celanese partnership.

“Our purpose is to pioneer packaging solutions for the benefit of people and planet, which means taking a holistic look at sustainability and making bold moves toward forward-looking technologies that offer our customers cost-effective options for improving sustainability,” said Pernille Lind Olsen, Global Head of the Packaging and Consumer Goods Adhesives division at Henkel. “This initiative will provide new options for our customers to meet overall sustainability goals in the packaging industry.”

By investing in products made from innovative technologies like CCU, Henkel and Celanese are not only meeting consumer demand for more renewable content in packaging but also making these solutions more attainable for consumer goods manufacturers.

“We are pleased to partner with Henkel to demonstrate another way in which Celanese ECO-CC products can support the transition to a more circular economy,” said Kevin Norfleet, Global Sustainability Leader at Celanese. “Our CCU platform offers a compelling and scalable path to delivering sustainability into the adhesives market and we are continuing to work to develop solutions for a broad range of applications.”