In a continuous effort for innovation and excellence, aircraft maintenance company GMI Aero (Paris, France) announces its participation in the Biobased Debondable Adhesives (BiDebA) project, co-funded by Interreg NWE, a European Territorial Cooperation program aiming to support a balanced development across northwest Europe. Together, with four other entities from Belgium and the Netherlands — Flanders Make, Avans University of Applied Sciences, TU Delft and ACRATS — GMI Aero will be actively working toward the development of bio-based debondable adhesives and associated methodologies, equipment and tooling, for composites, with application in the transportation sector. The project was successfully kicked off in late April 2024.

More specifically, in order to align with the circular economy’s waste hierarchy principles, extending the lifespan of composites through repair and reuse is crucial. According to GMI Aero, the major challenge lies in the inextricable bonding of composite materials through adhesives. First, conventional adhesives are primarily produced from fossil fuels and are therefore nonrenewable, and second, once applied, they hinder detachment and hence further repair, reuse and recycling. Addressing this challenge is particularly desirable in the northwest Europe region, which is said to have the largest composite and adhesive market share in Europe. BiDebA aims to develop one solution for circular composite repair by engineering bio-based adhesives, derived from renewable resources, to facilitate effortless detachment of composite parts.

BiDebA’s 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’s partners. The project is expected to result transnational pilot-scale demonstrations to showcase the applicability of this novel approach for non-structural composite parts. Via these demonstrations, BiDebA aims to convince companies to adopt these technologies in their products and processes, and thus advance the repair of composite materials.