Henkel KGaA : Ensuring Future Success with Henkel Adhesive Technologies

'Health, product safety and sustainability have become key aspects for both consumers and manufacturers today, increasingly shaping production processes in the packaging industry. At the same time, we see global market trends evolving that will fundamentally impact the packaging industry: Growing middle classes in emerging markets like China, India or Russia will not only increase overall demand for packaging - the socio-demographic developments they entail lead to altered consumption behaviors and ultimately different packaging needs. The rising relevance of online purchases and the related packaging requirements as well as new technologies like smart packaging are placing further innovational pressure on manufacturers,' Oliver Bossmann, Corporate Vice President Packaging and Consumer Goods Adhesives, Europe at Henkel explains. 'In order to excel in this future business environment, producers will - amongst others - need to increase their production efficiency. With a comprehensive product portfolio, our expertise and services, we aim to support our customers in meeting those challenges. This year's drupa provides us with an ideal framework for an exchange on these matters.'

Food safety and a healthy working environment

One of the core future challenges Henkel addresses at drupa is consumer and operator health. With regard to food safety, several topics like traces of plasticizers and mineral oil components in food products have recently lead to an increased awareness amongst consumers. Traces of such non-intentionally added substances ‏(NIAS) can potentially stem from many different packaging and food contact substances ‏(FCS): From ink, recycled board, plastic material, coating, waxed papers, jute bags, or from adhesives. Through own extensive research and development, Henkel has accumulated a comprehensive know-how in food safety over many years. This enables Henkel to provide its industry partners with products that offer highest standards. To name one example, the Aquence Low Migration dispersion adhesive range by Henkel used for folding boxes, bags or sacks made of paper and board is completely plasticizer free. This allows for a very high level of safety for packaging manufacturers and consumer goods producers.

Loctite Liofol LA 7796 / LA 6166 is a good example from the field of laminating adhesives: It is a solvent-free adhesive system with excellent product characteristics. This adhesive is completely free of cyclic esters and offers a fast decay of primary aromatic amines ‏(PAA). This adhesive system improves consumer safety through a minimized migration potential, especially considering NIAS. It also offers a high level of occupational safety, as the unwanted effect of misting at processing speeds above 400 m/min is significantly reduced.

A further product series which greatly improves occupational safety is the Technomelt PUR product range used in the graphic and bookbinding industry: Different from conventional polyurethane hotmelt adhesives, these MicroEmission adhesives make additional safety precaution measures in the production process unnecessary. With a monomeric isocyanate level lower than 0.1 percent, they are significantly below maximum permissible values requiring respective labeling. Tests have shown that Henkel MicroEmission adhesives lower isocyanate levels in the air by up to 90 percent.

Beyond providing its industry partners with high quality adhesive products exactly matching their specific needs, Henkel is also dedicated to share its know-how with them. With its Food Safety Portal available for its customers at www.henkel.com/foodsafety, Henkel has set up a vast knowledge database: Visitors can find interactive webinars, white papers, information on regulatory requirements - a 360 degree overview on all relevant topics.

Supporting the industry to achieve sustainability goals

Henkel has set for itself ambitious sustainability targets: The company is determined to triple the value it creates for the footprint made by its operations, products and services by 2030 compared to 2010. This is an important milestone for Henkel: By 2050, the company wants to improve efficiency by a fivefold - the level necessary to ensure global resource sufficiency at that time. But not only reaching its own sustainability targets is important to Henkel: The company also firmly believes in and acts on its responsibility to support its customers in reaching their own sustainability goals.

Good examples for this can be found in Henkel's innovative and sustainable solutions for pressure sensitive adhesives ‏(PSA). Cooperating closely with its customers, Henkel is the only adhesive supplier improving sustainability in all four main PSA technologies: Hotmelt, UV hotmelt, water-based and solvent-based acrylics. The hotmelt PSA Loctite Duro-Tak UV range, for example, is 100 percent solid acrylic-based and UV-curable and an alternative to water- and solvent-based PSA. This reduces emissions in the customer's production process. Henkel also increases the total solid content of its solvent based and water based acrylics to reach optimal performance through better production processes, while reducing inventory. Furthermore, Henkel improves sustainability by optimizing the delivery process through the supply of liquid hotmelt PSA. This saves energy, as it is more efficient to keep the product in a liquid state than having to re-melt it on site. And it reduces waste, as packaging material for transport is not needed.

Improving efficiency and speeding up production

The reduction of material waste is as important to improving sustainability as it is a key factor in increasing production efficiency: Henkel is determined to provide its industry partners with innovations that do not force them to enter a trade-off between production efficiency and sustainability or consumer and worker safety. Henkel's adhesive solutions have excellent application characteristics and enable faster production processes: Henkel's Aeration Technology, consisting of a next generation glue mixer unit and the new formulation of Henkel's Aquence laminating adhesive, is an ideal system solution to ensure high quality and high speed laminating of liner to corrugated board.

'To us, providing our customers with safe and sustainable solutions that at the same time offer them a competitive edge is the result of Henkel's long experience in the industry as well as a close dialogue and joint-effort partnership. We are looking forward to continuing this journey of business success with our partners,' Oliver Bossmann concludes.

Henkel - What's next? Discover adhesive and coating solutions

Henkel will present more examples of product innovations and system solutions at drupa from May 31st until June 10th. Under the heading 'Henkel - What's next? Discover adhesive and coating solutions' the company experts are looking forward to answering all questions in hall 14, stand B04.