Enabling even more sustainable UV-curable coatings with partly bio-based resins

One part of a broader sustainability picture

Across multiple industries, coatings and adhesives manufacturers are facing demand for more sustainable solutions that can lower their customers’ environmental impact.

Manufacturers can address this demand in several ways – for instance, using alternative fuels, reducing their use of solvents, or enabling recyclability.

One increasingly popular approach is to use partly bio-based resins manufactured from plant-based raw materials. When combined with the sustainability benefits of UV curing, this can make a big impact – particularly in flooring and furniture applications.

Navigating the evolving bio-based landscape

But creating partly bio-based UV-curable coatings can be easier said than done. Firstly, the coatings industry is relatively new to bio-based raw materials. Across the value chain, manufacturers are still testing the most efficient ways to gather, purify, and process them. As a result, production volumes are typically lower, which often makes bio-based raw materials more expensive.

What’s more, existing bio-based solutions for water-based coatings can’t usually be used to create UV-curable coatings. Typically, UV-curable coatings require entirely different raw materials – which also means different suppliers, volumes, and pricing.

UV-curable resins with up to 83% bio-based content

At Covestro, we offer 16 partly bio-based UV-curable resins, containing up to 83% bio-based content. This bio-based content comes from natural sources such as soybean oil, which is backed up by certified external analysis. Specifically, the natural carbon (C14) content can be measured and quantified versus fossil-based carbon (C12). The bio-based carbon content is noted as a percentage of total carbon content, not as the weight percentage of the total commercial product.

We’re also continually working with our suppliers to get additional certification statements for our partly bio-based UV-curable resins, on topics such as sustainable harvesting.

Balancing bio-based content with cost and performance

Across all our partly bio-based UV-curable resins, we aim to balance bio-based content with functional performance and cost.

Our goal is for our partly bio-based resins to replicate the performance of their traditional equivalents as much as possible. Our portfolio offers high-performance properties including multi-substrate adhesion, pigment grinding, silky-feel haptics, excellent wetting, and easy gloss reduction. Where there are inevitable differences in performance, we work with you to identify them and make improvements.

And we don’t make any extra profit from our partly bio-based products: any increased prices are a direct reflection of our own increased raw material costs.

A continuous conversation with our customers

The right balance between bio-based content, cost, and performance is different for every customer and market. For instance, leading furniture brands are particularly critical about mechanical and chemical resistance. The percentage of bio-based content is typically more critical in furniture and flooring than in printing and packaging. This is because coatings make up a smaller proportion of printing and packaging products, and recyclability is a more pressing issue for this market.

As such, a key part of our approach is having an ongoing discussion about your needs, whether you’re getting the expected value from our products, and how we can improve.

We’ll continue these conversations as we expand our partly bio-based UV-curable resin portfolio to offer even higher levels of bio-based content or functional performance. Only with unfiltered feedback can we continue improving our offering – and only together can we enable even more sustainable, effective UV-curable coatings.