A compostable nonwoven material that holds like cloth in the hand — and breaks down on cue when its season comes. One platform; many single-use products — wipes, filtration, packaging, agriculture and everyday paper among them.

CompostableNo microplasticsThermally gated

Durable wipes don't compost. Compostable wipes don't last. Caducel refuses the trade — strong and wet-tough in use, then engineered to let go in the heat of a compost.

The cue is temperature, not moisture. So it survives the sink, the spill and the wipe, and disintegrates only where you mean it to.

The platform, made visible

One material, many forms.

The gated web

The invention itself — tough in the hand, releasing on cue, as the fragment shows.

Wet wipe

Stays strong in a saturated pack; lets go in composting heat.

Agricultural mat

Holds through the growing season, then tills into the soil.

The thermal gate

Built to last. Made to leave.

Below the gate, the web stays bonded and wet-strong. Cross into composting heat and the bonds release. Move the slider.

Intact
23°C
Use temperature

Room and tap-water range. The web behaves like a durable cloth — full wet strength, no breakdown.

20°C · hand50°C · gate62°C · compost
Structural strength100%

Look closer

Everything about Caducel.

01

Technology

The gate, the three release mechanisms and the physics behind them.

Explore →
02

Products

One gated material, and the full range of single-use products it can become.

Explore →
03

About

The idea, the roadmap and where the patent stands today.

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04

Contact

Samples, partnerships and press — start a conversation.

Explore →

Technology

Heat is the cue. Everything follows from that.

A material that gets wet for a living can't use water as its off-switch. Caducel makes temperature the trigger — invisible during use, unavoidable in a compost.

Three ways to build the gate

One principle, engineered three ways.

Embodiment A

Thermally-labile binder

A low-melting biodegradable binder holds the web in use, then softens at the trigger and releases the fibres.

Embodiment B

Latent accelerant

A sequestered agent stays inert until composting heat activates it, then accelerates hydrolysis of the load-bearing fibres.

Embodiment C

Microcapsule

Capsules with a shell tuned to rupture at the gate release a debonding agent on cue — opened only by heat.

Inside the web

A layered structure, tuned through the thickness.

soft absorbent gating

Use-side layer

Surface-soft, low-lint cellulose for skin and feel.

Absorbent core

Plant-fibre body carrying capacity and wet strength.

Gating layer

Where the thermal trigger lives — binder, accelerant or capsules tuned to the gate temperature.

The surface, up close

A nonwoven, not a paper.

Fibre, not fibreglass.

Interlaced plant-cellulose and biodegradable fibres give the web its cloth-like strength and absorbency — with the thermal trigger dispersed through the structure, invisible until the gate is crossed.

The physics

The gate is where the polymer changes state.

Plant-based polyesters are glassy and stable at room temperature and turn mobile above their glass transition, where water uptake and chain scission accelerate sharply. Caducel tunes release to sit just above ordinary use and right at composting heat — the same property that makes it stable in your hand is what makes it leave in the compost.

~23°CUse. Glassy, bonded, wet-strong.
~50°CThe gate. The state transition begins.
~58°CCompost. Mobile, hydrolysing, releasing.

From hand to soil

A clean line through its whole life.

01

In use

Cloth-strong, wet-tough, soft on skin.

02

To compost

Binned with food and garden waste.

03

Crosses the gate

At composting heat the bonds release.

04

Returns to soil

Plant fibre becomes compost.

Science

The science of letting go.

The principles below are established polymer and materials science — the "why it works." The specific formulations, trigger windows and bonding architecture that make Caducel work are the inventive matter, and stay in the filing.

Every wipe lives between two opposed demands: integrity in use — including wet strength, because the job involves water — and rapid breakdown at end of life. The same bonds that give a web its strength are the ones you later need to break.

Conventional materials pick a side. Cellulose tissue composts but is weak when wet, because its strength comes from hydrogen bonds that water disrupts. Synthetic nonwovens are wet-strong but never biodegrade. "Dispersible" wipes make water the trigger — self-defeating for anything whose job is to get wet.

The key idea

Trigger on a variable use never touches.

use range compost the gate web strength 20°C ~gate 70°C

Temperature, not moisture.

The thermal envelope of normal use is narrow and low — skin near 32 °C, ambient at room temperature, warm tap water topping out around 40–45 °C. Composting heat is distinct: the thermophilic phase runs roughly 55–65 °C. Those regimes barely overlap, so a property that switches across a threshold between them stays stable through the working life and still flips at disposal. Moisture can't do this — it's present in both. Temperature can.

The physical switch

The glass transition.

Biobased polyesters have a glass transition (Tg) — a comparatively sharp change of state. Below it the polymer is glassy: chain segments are frozen, free volume and water uptake are low, the material is stiff. Above it the amorphous phase turns rubbery — mobility rises, water gets in, and the mechanical contribution falls.

PLA is the textbook case, with a Tg around 55–60 °C — which lands right in the composting band. A web whose load-bearing function depends on the glassy state is, in effect, mechanically "on" below the transition and "off" above it.

Below Tg · glassy
Above Tg · rubbery

Kinetics

How strength is actually lost.

The state change gates a chemical process: hydrolysis of the ester bonds in the polyester backbone. Two effects make it strongly temperature-dependent. Ordinary Arrhenius behaviour speeds the reaction with heat; and crossing Tg adds a step change beyond Arrhenius, because hydrolysis needs both water inside the matrix and chain mobility — and both jump above the transition.

Ester hydrolysis is autocatalytic: each cleavage frees an acid chain-end that lowers local pH and accelerates further scission, so degradation runs through the bulk, not just the surface. Mechanically, what you feel is molecular-weight decline — strength tracks chain length, and below a critical length the network can no longer carry load, embrittles and fragments. Crystalline domains resist water and go last, so the amorphous fraction governs the early, strength-losing stage.

Kinetics · the measure

Molecular weight tells the story.

load-bearing strength threshold fragments molecular weight trigger time in compost →

A threshold, then collapse.

Hydrolysis cuts the polymer chains and average molecular weight falls. Strength holds while the chains stay long, then drops sharply once they pass a critical length — the web embrittles and breaks into fragments. Crystalline regions shut out water and go last, so the amorphous fraction sets the pace of the early, strength-losing stage.

Materials · the web

Anatomy of a nonwoven.

Strength lives at the bonds.

A nonwoven isn't woven — it's a web of fibres joined at discrete points (in clay). How those points are made decides how strong the sheet is and how it lets go. Dismantle the bond network and the web becomes loose fibre again.

Mechanical

Spunlace

High-pressure water jets entangle the fibres — soft and strong, with no binder.

Thermal

Bond points

Bicomponent or binder fibres melt and fuse where fibres cross when heated.

Chemical · H-bond

Binders

Latex binders — or, in pure cellulose, hydrogen bonds that water readily breaks.

Wet strength is its own property: it needs a bond network that resists water, which is why tissue relies on wet-strength chemistry and why a biopolyester scaffold often carries the load when the sheet is soaked. Place a temperature-responsive element at those bonds, and a thermal transition becomes a loss of web integrity.

Materials · the build

Two materials, two jobs.

The substrate — absorbency & bulk

Plant cellulose pulp, regenerated cellulose (lyocell or viscose) or biopolyester staple give the sheet its softness, loft and thirst. Cellulose loves water and composts readily — but on its own it is weak once wet.

The matrix — strength & the switch

A biodegradable aliphatic polyester binds the web and holds load when wet. Because its mechanical contribution is gated by a thermal transition, it is also where the disintegration trigger naturally lives.

The palette

A real design space, not one trick.

Several biodegradable aliphatic polyesters have transitions in useful ranges. Blending, copolymer composition, plasticisation and crystallinity all shift them — so the thresholds are tunable by formulation.

PolymerTransitionNote
PLATg ~55–60 °CGlass transition sits in the composting band; the canonical case.
PCLTm ~60 °CLow melting point puts thermally-responsive behaviour within reach.
PHA / PHBvariesMarine-biodegradable; amorphous PHA is used to flexibilise brittle PLA.
PBSTm ~90–115 °CTougher, higher-melting matrix option in blends.
PBATTm ~110–120 °CFlexible compostable copolyester; a common toughener blended with PLA.
PGAfast-hydrolysingHigh barrier and quick to break down; used where rapid loss is wanted.

Materials · tuning

Levers that move the gate.

The same chemistry can be dialled to different trigger behaviours by formulation — which is how a gate is matched to a home or an industrial compost.

Order

Crystallinity

Crystalline domains shut out water and hydrolyse last; annealing and nucleation raise them and slow the early breakdown.

Composition

Copolymer & blend

Lactide ratio (PLLA vs PDLLA), or blending a low-melting polyester with a structural one, shifts the effective transition.

Mobility

Plasticiser & Mw

Plasticisers lower the glass transition; starting molecular weight and acidic chain-ends set how fast hydrolysis runs.

In the compost

Breakdown is a two-step reality.

01

Heat — abiotic hydrolysis

Thermophilic heat (55–65 °C) chops high-molecular-weight polymer down to oligomers and monomers. This is the step that needs the gate.

02

Microbes — assimilation

Esterases, cutinases and lipases (and cellulases for the cellulosic fraction) consume the fragments.

03

Mineralisation

The carbon ends up as CO₂, water and biomass. This is why PLA is reliably industrial- but not home-compostable: it needs the heat to start.

Three words people conflate

Disintegration is not biodegradation.

Physical

Disintegration

Fragmentation into small pieces — standards want ≥90% to under 2 mm within ~12 weeks.

Biological

Biodegradation

Microbial conversion of those fragments — typically ≥90% within six months under test.

Complete

Mineralisation

Full conversion to CO₂, water and biomass — nothing persistent remaining.

Held to the marks

Standards & how you'd prove it.

Industrial
EN 13432
With ASTM D6400 in the US — disintegration, biodegradation, ecotoxicity and heavy-metal limits.
Home
Cooler
Schemes such as AS 5810, NF T51-800 and TÜV OK compost HOME test at lower temperatures.
Margin
Shelf life
The gate must clear worst-case storage — a hot warehouse can near 60 °C — yet still trigger in a cooler compost.
DSC — Tg, Tm, crystallinityGPC/SEC — molecular weightDry & wet tensileRespirometry (ISO 14855)Disintegration (ISO 16929)Accelerated aging

A note on candour

What stays in the filing.

Everything above is public science, shared openly. What isn't here — the specific trigger mechanism and its temperature window, the formulations that achieve a sharp gate with shelf-life margin, and the architecture that ties the thermal switch to the load path — is the inventive matter. It belongs in the patent application, not in marketing. That line is deliberate.

Products

The same gated web, tuned to the task.

The product is the material; what you make from it is a setting. Below it's shown tuned to two familiar formats — the same gate tunes just as readily to wipes, filters, packaging and the rest of the range.

Wet wipes
Gate temperature~50 °C
Basis weight60 g/m²
BuildSpunlaced, lotion-loaded
Disintegration≥90% · ISO 16929

Survives a saturated pack; lets go in heat.

Wet-storage stableStrong when soakedHeat-release

The full range

One material, many products.

The gate lives in the web, not in any one product — so the same material can become almost any single-use nonwoven. These are the directions it's engineered to reach, shown as equals.

Wet wipes

Pre-moistened wipes that survive a saturated pack — because the trigger is heat, not water.

Industrial wipes

Shop wipes and sorbent pads for oils, solvents and spills.

Filtration media

Air, liquid and beverage filters; the gate is set above service heat.

Medical & surgical

Drapes, gowns, mask layers, underpads and sterilization wrap.

Hygiene & absorbent

Diaper, incontinence and feminine-care layers.

Personal care

Facial sheet masks, cotton pads and cleansing rounds.

Food service

Plates, bowls, clamshells, wraps, liners and food pads.

Packaging

Void-fill, cushioning, padded mailers and molded forms.

Agriculture

Mulch mats, weed barriers, seed tapes and row covers.

Disposable apparel

Coveralls, aprons, caps, bibs and shoe covers.

Pet & animal care

Training pads, litter liners, pet wipes and bedding.

Home & hospitality

Spa and salon towels, disposable linens and table covers.

Office & site

Mailers, labels and limited-use landscape and erosion fabric.

Everyday paper

Towels, kitchen roll, napkins, facial and bath tissue from the same web.

These categories describe the addressable range of the patent-pending platform — directions the material is engineered to reach, not products shipping today.

Where it sits

The only column without a compromise.

Set the material against the alternatives any single-use product is built from today — paper, persistent synthetics, and ambient-degrading bioplastics.

Property
Caducel
Conventional paper
Synthetic nonwoven
Ambient compostable
Durable & wet-strong in use
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Fully compostable
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No persistent microplastics
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Breaks down on a deliberate cue
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Survives water during use
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Who it's for

Wherever something is used once and thrown away.

Consumer & away-from-home

Towels, tissue, wipes and cleaning cloths for home, foodservice, hospitality and facilities.

Healthcare & hygiene

Drapes, gowns, underpads and absorbent-product layers that compost instead of persisting.

Food service & packaging

Plates, wraps and liners, plus void-fill, mailers and protective forms.

Agriculture & industrial

Mulch mats and row covers, filtration media and sorbents — gated above their working heat.

Sustainability

The waste problem, answered at the end.

Billions of wipes are thrown away every year. The durable ones persist for generations; the compostable ones rarely survive the job. Caducel closes the loop without giving up performance.

Designed to return to soil.

When the job is done, Caducel goes in with food and garden waste. At composting heat the gate opens, the web fragments, and plant fibre becomes compost — assessed against EN 13432 and ASTM D6400.

Made for the moment it's used.

Whatever form it takes, it behaves exactly like the disposable it replaces — wet-strong, absorbent, soft — so nothing about daily life has to change for it to do the right thing afterward.

Three steps

Nothing new to learn.

01

Use

Wipe, mop, blow — it performs like a premium cloth, wet or dry.

02

Bin with food waste

No rinsing, no special stream. Straight into the compost or food-waste caddy.

03

It returns

Composting heat triggers the gate; the web disintegrates and breaks down.

Standards

Held to the recognised marks.

Disintegration
≥90%
Target fragmentation once triggered, within roughly twelve weeks under EN 13432.
Composting
EN 13432
The European standard for compostable packaging; ASTM D6400 is its US counterpart.
Microplastics
None
No persistent synthetic fibre, so nothing lasting is shed or left behind.

Journal

Notes on a material that knows when to go.

Short reads on the thinking behind Caducel — the science, the standards, and the case for a smarter end of life.

About

The idea.

Caducel began with a stubborn question: why must a wipe choose between lasting and leaving?

Durable wipes persist for generations. Compostable ones fall apart before they're useful. The answer wasn't a new fibre — it was a new cue. By making heat, not moisture, the trigger for breakdown, the same web can be tough in the hand and gone in the compost.

Caducel is built around that single idea — and patented around it.

Roadmap

From filing to shelf.

Now

Provisional filed

Priority secured on the thermally-gated release and its mechanisms. Micro-entity filing.

Next

Bench validation

Wet-strength at use temperature and triggered disintegration above the gate, measured.

Then

Compost certification

Disintegration and biodegradation assessed against EN 13432 / ASTM D6400.

Then

Pilot production

Converting-line trials proving the gate survives manufacture and converting.

Goal

Market

Material supply and lead applications across wipes, filtration, packaging and agriculture.

What it leaves behind

Plant fibre in. Soil out.

Standard
90%
Target disintegration under EN 13432 / ASTM D6400 once triggered, within roughly twelve weeks.
Footprint
Zero
Persistent microplastics — plant cellulose and biodegradable fibre, no lasting synthetics.
Cue
~50°C
The thermal gate: above ordinary use, at or below composting heat.

Contact

Start a conversation.

Whether you're a retailer, a converter, a composter or the press — here's the door.

General

Questions about the material, the gate or availability.

hello@caducel.com

Partnerships

Manufacturing, converting, distribution and retail.

partners@caducel.com

Press & samples

Media, sample requests and the brand kit.

press@caducel.com

Request samples

Get the material in hand.

Tell us a little and we'll prepare a sample pack. This composes an email — nothing is sent until you hit send in your mail app.

Questions

The honest answers.

Will it fall apart while I'm using it?
No. The release cue is heat, not water. Below the gate it stays bonded and wet-strong, so it handles spills and wiping like a durable cloth.
Home compost or industrial?
The gate can be tuned to the target environment — a lower trigger for the cooler peaks of home composting, a higher one for in-use robustness with industrial composting near 58 °C.
Why heat instead of a dissolving wipe?
A water trigger would defeat a wipe — its whole job is to get wet. Heat is a cue the product never meets in ordinary use but always meets in a compost.
Does it leave microplastics?
No. The web is plant cellulose and biodegradable fibre, with no persistent synthetic component.
What's the patent status?
Patent pending. The thermally-gated release and its mechanisms are the subject of a filing; specifications are being finalised against bench data.

A material that knows when to go.

Inquire