Covestro highlights sustainable adhesives & digital LCA at ECS 2025

Special focus is placed on technologies that increase productivity while promoting circular economy. These include an automated laboratory for formulation development, material screening, and polymer analytics; an innovative direct coating process for the automotive industry, and a TÜV-certified, cloud-based solution for product-specific lifecycle analyses (LCA).

"Our customers' and partners' challenges are becoming increasingly complex. Be it accelerated development cycles, ever-higher product requirements, or circularity and recyclability. We offer innovative solutions that not only convince technologically but also make an important contribution to greater sustainability," explains Martin Merkens, head of sales & market development EMLA in Covestro's Coatings and Adhesives business entity.

"At ECS 2025, we demonstrate how we make customers and partners successful and can accompany them every step of the way. We look forward to personal meetings and discussions!"

At ECS, the company announces an automated laboratory for optimizing formulations with Covestro's binders and crosslinkers for coatings and adhesives. With this, Covestro sets new standards in the productivity of its application development. The new facility can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The goal is to conduct tens of thousands of tests annually. This sets a new benchmark in terms of quantity, variety, precision, and testing speed.

Another advantage: The automated laboratory generates a large amount of structured data. The knowledge about formulation possibilities and influencing factors thus will grow rapidly. The collected data, combined with measurement data from existing trials, is evaluated using special machine learning algorithms to further improve formulations.

Application development experts and specialists from segments such as automotive, printing & packaging, or construction & architecture are present at ECS to discuss new collaborative approaches now made possible by the laboratory.

Covestro announced in January the use of a new cloud-based solution for product-specific lifecycle analyses (LCA). The TÜV Rheinland-certified software solution not only enables significantly faster and more precise calculation of a products' environmental footprint but also identifies concrete approaches to reducing the CO₂ footprint, thus supporting Covestro's customers in their sustainable transformation.

Covestro aims to fully align itself with the circular economy. This includes using alternative raw materials, transitioning to green energy, and developing recycling technologies and recyclable products. To make sustainable products more easily identifiable, the company has introduced the "CQ" label, which stands for "Circular Intelligence."

Products labeled this way contain at least 25% alternative raw materials. Several examples used in coatings and adhesives are exhibited at ECS. For example, food packaging coated with fully recyclable, partially bio-based resins, or water-based polyurethane dispersions for textile printing.