Sticking with graphene: a Christmas wrap-up

This year’s last article before we exchange season’s greetings is dedicated to corrugated boards. These are used for packaging every imaginable product shipped worldwide, often sold and bought via e-commerce. It is a big industry, abuzz during Christmas time.  

While paper stock or paper pulp makes up most of the corrugated boards, the adhesive plays a vital role in obtaining the most robust boards. When the Italian chemical company Kemind was looking to increase the mechanical resistance of such adhesive, they came across graphene.  

The traditional adhesives for corrugated boards are made of vegetable starch and the company found that they could enhance them with graphene. In collaboration with the graphene manufacturer 2D fab (Sweden) – member of Graphene Flagship Partnering Project SIO Grafen – the companies developed a glue formula which could dry at lower temperatures and was given the name Kemigraph® B. It resulted in an increase in production efficiency of 30%, reduction in production costs and improvement in quality. The company reported that they can also reduce the quantity of glue needed. 

Kemigraph® B is suitable for heavy packaging. So if you asked Santa for a very big gift this year, it might just come in a box held together with a dash of graphene.  

Reference: Kemind to improve the corrugated board industry with graphene enhanced glue concepts - 2D fab