Development of high-performance sucrose-based adhesives with high density cross-linking network inspired by Maillard reaction or Cuisine chemistry

Currently, there is a great interest to developing high performance, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly bio-based adhesives. In this work, inspired by Maillard reaction and/or cooking chemistry instead of conventional modification procedure, high-performance, formaldehyde-free, and sustainable sucrose-based adhesives containing hyperbranched cross-linked structures are developed. Oxidized sucrose (OS) reacts with polyamines (PAMN) to generate a dense cross-linking network. Compared with the pure OS used directly as adhesive, the dry shear strength of the OS-PAMN increased by 134% from 0.95 to 2.22 MPa, while the wet tensile shear strength increased from 0 to 1.85 MPa. The bond strengths are enhanced with increasing the amount of terminal amino groups. This may be ascribed to the condensation between OS and polyamine produces a branched cross-linking structure formed through OS-induced Maillard reaction, which reinforces the cross-linked density and compacts the structure of OS-PAMN adhesive. As a result, OS-PAMN adhesives with dense network structures exhibit stronger bonding properties and water resistance with a corresponding percentage of wood failure of 80%, suggesting that the performance of adhesives is reinforced by Maillard reaction and/or cooking chemistry. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.