Taking sustainable design to the next level with a smart adhesive that offers “Debonding on Demand”

A diverse and growing range of “Debonding on Demand” methods is now being integrated into adhesive tapes for a huge variety of products, from cell phones to car displays, Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries and beyond. Making it possible to rework parts during production helps save resources and cut waste because errors can be corrected instead of scrapping material. Repairing products extends their life cycle and eliminates the need to manufacture replacements. And enabling recycling of a broader range of products supports the transition to a circular economy, where materials stay in the economic cycle for longer and waste becomes a thing of the past.

We are cooperating with OEMs to develop tapes with debonding mechanism, and we are at an advanced stage of product development. tesa has developed the famous tape tesa® Bond & Detach in the last decade which enables mechanical release with residue-free removability. Now structural adhesives will be also debondable smartly with different triggers such as temperature, electricity, laser, electromagnetic induction, which intensively developed in our current Debonding on Demand scope and allows non-destructive disassembling for the first time - impossible in the past. The tesa “Debonding on Demand” Portfolio offers a mechanism for design freedom, based on different triggers, allowing our customers to redesign their devices to meet their sustainable design needs. Early engagement with the customer is key to ensuring that the debonding mechanism can be incorporated into the substrate, material, and overall design.

The electronics industry is already embracing tesa’s “Debonding on Demand” portfolio. End users in this market want devices that are repairable, recyclable and sustainable. Changing regulations in the European Union are also driving popularity for smart “Debonding on Demand” technologies in this fast-moving market. The legislation aims to give consumers the right to repair products by themselves, for example, without special knowledge or tools. That’s a big challenge for device manufacturers. They urgently need solutions that enable them to design next-generation devices that meet this new set of legislative requirements.

In the automotive sector, by comparison, DoD adhesive tapes are only at the beginning of their journey. The road ahead still has plenty of twists and turns. The Council of the EU recently aligned new regulations to strengthen sustainability rules for batteries and waste batteries from production to reuse and recycling.

At first glance, to make the ever-lasting bonding tape debondable without compromising performance sounds like a contradiction and mission impossible. Therefore, smart “Debonding on Demand” technology attracts huge interests for the potential to enable contributions to sustainability for the circular economy across industries. Looking ahead, scientists at tesa are now seeking to build debonding mechanisms into more and more of its 7,000 products. Chemists, engineers, and product developers from tesa are engaging with customers to develop the optimal solutions for future designs. This growing trend for smart “Debonding on Demand” solutions is the latest step in tesa’s proud history of improving products and lives with innovative and sustainable adhesives for more than 125 years. And these bonding, debonding and re-bonding solutions are already gaining popularity with customers across markets worldwide.