Assessment of the adhesive properties of the bacterial polysaccharide FucoPol

To address the industry’s interest in finding novel biobased glues, the adhesive properties of the bacterial polysaccharide FucoPol were evaluated through shear bond strength tests. A FucoPol solution was used to bond different materials, namely, wood, glass, cardboard and cellulose acetate film. The shear strength was compared to that of the same adherends bonded with commercial synthetic glues. Wood-wood joints bonded with FucoPol formulation withstood 742.2±9.8kPa shear strength without detachment. FucoPol adhesive capacity for cardboard was comparable to that of the tested commercial glues (425±8.9kPa), yielding similar shear strength values (416.0±12.9kPa), while improved performance was shown for glass (115.1±26.2kPa) and cellulose acetate film (153.7±11.3kPa) comparing to the commercial glues (67.7–97.5kPa and 79.4–92.7kPa, respectively). This study demonstrates the adhesive properties of FucoPol, opening up the opportunity of using this bacterial polysaccharide for the development of new natural water-based glues, suitable to bond different materials.