A laser-based process that enables adhesive-free paper packaging

14 hours ago (fraunhofer.de)

I've also seen a glue-less paper binding trick where two pieces of paper are finely crimped together with some high pressure tool in alternating v^v^v^ patterns, actually making tiny tears in the paper. Does anyone know what kind of tool does that?

  • Possibly this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NeGah4YJg0

    It's a bit hard to search for, because they make one that punches a hole too (shows up in the video).

    • The problem with these staple-less staplers is that they permanently damage the paper. With a regular staple there are two tiny holes and that's it. You can bend open the staple to get back your individual sheets (e.g. to scan a particular page) and if you want to put them back together you can push the same staple or a fresh one back through the existing holes and bend it close.

      You can repeat the process as many times as you want and there won't be any new damage to the paper. With a paperless stapler you would have to do new damage to the paper each time. Also, a regular staple is pretty much forever while these crimped folds can eventually come loose again.

Since Fraunhofer is a notorious patent extortionist, best to not even look at this page.

  • Can you elaborate on this? My guess would be, that because of their status as a government backed research institute, they invent a lot, but let others do the commercialisation. So patent fees seem like a natural choice for them, to recover their investments.

  • Fraunhofer has a ton of top of the line innovations. I'm glad it exists. If the only way to exist is for them to collect on patents they've produced, I don't see the issue.

    • I'd gladly take every Fraunhofer "innovation" 5 years later if it meant Fraunhofer didn't exist. Compression patent extortionists are the scum of the earth.

What a cool read? I didn't expect lasers to be the answer. I use rubber bands all the time to hold paper wrap together. I thought the answer would be rubber bands or strings (analog version).

That is really neat:

  “By irradiating the paper with a CO laser, we create refusible, sugar-like 
  reaction products that we use instead of the synthetic materials or adhesives 
  that would otherwise be required to seal the paper by the heat sealing 
  process. In this way, we are essentially producing our own adhesive"

  • It is but it completely defeats the claimed purpose of bein adhesive free.

    • Not my field by any means, but I think it's primarily to avoid adhesives that are difficult to handle during recycling.

      Turning the paper molecules into simple sugars and using thosr as an adhesive is presumably beneficial because the sugars would easily dissolve in the water when the paper is recycled. Most other industrial adhesives as I understand it are hydrophobic, so aren't as easily removed.

    • I had the same thought, but there are two differences: the amount of these compounds (presumably low) and how they behave in recycling compared to current adhesives. Maybe they wash out, maybe they can accumulate to a large degree without making the recycled paper worse.

      The article doesn't tell, unfortunately. Worst case, a cool technical article is the only thing the technology is good for...

      2 replies →

    • I mean you're eliminating an entire consumable supply chain though. Being able to have your packaging inputs be _just_ paper is a huge advantage.

[flagged]

  • dont be like that. so semantic youre missing the point so you can dote on yourself.

    I feel like its pretty obvious they mean an adhesive in the sense of an additional substance or agent. Just because they use a laser to modify the paper structure to effectively become sticky, doesnt detract at all from the goal and point of the title. that no additional products/agent/glues were needed.

    absolutely missing the point of it all just to jerk your ego off.

    this is so prevalent on HH that it’s normalized and most the cerebral bozos cant read between lines beyond their self righteous vantage.

    • I think the remark -while rude- brings up an important point: is the in-situ generated adhesive compatible with the paper recycling processes? if so, it seems that simply applying the discovered in-situ chemicals artificially would be faster and not rely on CO2 laser tube set-up (they don't last forever).

      If it IS compatible with the later recycling steps, then what prevents us from simply applying a similar or simplified mix of chemicals generated by the CO2 laser treatment?

      Suppose some adhesives already use the same or similar chemicals, the question would arise if you really discovered a compatible glue, or if you just discovered a proper dosage in your application? We can keep coming up with elegant research showing this or that is compatible with a certain recycling step, in the case that some players in industry use inappropriate amounts of glue, the problem would not be a lack of compatible glues but proper dosing, or tracing the manufacturer / end-users of the glue/paper combination that gunked up some recycling process.

      2 replies →

Has anyone seen my stapler?

  • But that doesn’t come with government grants and follow-on funding and subsidies to take it to market under government protection and by being able to use eco-marketing.

I thought that this was going to be illustrations of the marvelous ways that the Japanese wrap and secure gifts without using any tape. When I was in Japan years ago I would tell them that a purchase was a gift just to see how they wrapped things. I might even still have something that I never unwrapped because the finished thing was a work of art in itself.

  • Me too, I'm glad I read through the article, but the Japanese shop wrapping technique is interesting too.