BiDebA

Composite materials offer great opportunities to contribute to the European Green Deal by enabling substantial reductions in fuel consumption and carbon emissions in the transportation sector due to their lightweight and high strength properties. They produce, however, a significant amount of waste (est. 683 kton in EU in 2025) with limited recycling capacity (15%). To align with the circular economy's waste hierarchy principles, extending the lifespan of composites through repair and reuse is crucial. The major challenge lies in the inextricable bonding of composite materials through adhesives. Conventional adhesives exhibit a two-fold challenge 1) they are primarily produced from fossil fuels and are therefore non-renewable, and 2) once applied, they hinder detachment and hence further repair, reuse, and recycling. Addressing this challenge is particularly desirable in the North-West Europe region, which has the largest composite and adhesive market share in Europe. In this project, we aim to develop one solution for circular composite repair by engineering bio-based adhesives, derived from renewable resources, to facilitate effortless detachment of the parts on command. Our novel approach draws inspiration from historical materials and integrates recent developed bio-based adhesive formulations into existing pilot-scale debonding and composite repair setups from the project partners. Finally, this will result in one pilot scale demonstrator. Through transnational pilot-scale demonstrations on a representative use case, we will showcase the applicability of our approach for non-structural composite parts. We focus on the transportation sector, the largest consumer of composites, and more specifically companies involved in composite repair. Via these demonstrations in the region that represents the largest market share, we aim to convince companies to adopt these technologies in their products and processes, and hence to advance the repair of composite materials.