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Adhesion Characteristics

It can be difficult to select an adhesive for specific application performance. With a thorough understanding of the relationship between adhesives, coating processes and end user applications, our team has decades of experience doing just that. Performance Polymers offers a full portfolio of pressure-sensitive adhesives with a range of characteristics that can transfer specific performance features to a tape, label or film.

High Shear

There are many reasons why a high shear adhesive could be favorable for use with an application or a converting process. High shear adhesives are formulated using high molecular weight polymers with high chain entanglement and high levels of crosslinking, giving the adhesive high holding power and high temperature performance.

These high-performance adhesives provide clean removability and lower adhesive ooze than other adhesives. This results in better performance when cutting and stripping, allowing tapes, labels and films to be converted more quickly and efficiently.

Quick Stick

Adhesives offering “quick stick” characteristics feature high tack performance. This allows the adhesive to wet out easily with little time or pressure, quickly forming a bond to a wide variety of materials. These adhesives are often used in situations where a part is rapidly applied, commonly used in high speed assembly lines, or needs to bond to a wide variety of surfaces.

This high tack performance is achieved by either selecting polymers with low molecular weight, adding specific additives like tackifiers or a combination of these two methods, resulting in more adhesive flow. The increased adhesive flow is what allows the adhesive to wet out across a surface easier.

Removable and Repositionable

Removable and repositionable adhesives are designed to provide an acceptable bond to a substrate while still removing cleanly. These adhesives generally feature a lower than average glass-transition temperature (Tg), high molecular weight and additives customized for specific substrates.

Because the ability to remove or reposition an adhesive relies on a complex array of factors, selection of a removable or repositionable adhesive is often tied directly to a specific application. For example, an adhesive that is cleanly removable on a substrate like polypropylene may leave adhesive residue when removed from a higher surface energy material like stainless steel. Only by evaluating the details of an application to include processes, substrates, environmental conditions and product use can a removable or repositionable adhesive then be selected, customized or created.

Low Surface Energy (LSE) Adhesion

Across almost every industry, highly engineered plastic composites are becoming more widely adopted. Many of these plastics, like polypropylene or PTFE, have low surface energies, which can present a big challenge for pressure-sensitive adhesives. To bond to these surfaces with minimal priming or pre-treating, these adhesives feature a tailored polymer structure that allows for the adhesive to better flow (or “wet out”) across a surface, improving adhesion levels.

Avery Dennison Performance Polymers has extensive knowledge of polymer technology and how it directly translates to adhesive performance. Working closely with our customers, our scientists and engineers can quickly adjust existing adhesive platforms or develop new polymer systems to address the most complex challenges.

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At Avery Dennison Performance Polymers, our technical service and R&D teams bring together extensive Materials Science knowledge and polymer design and formulation. We combine our coating and converting know-how with a deep understanding of end-user applications. And, our team has the capability to quickly tailor and customize adhesives to provide the right solution to your unique application-driven challenges.

For more information on how Performance Polymers can help solve your challenges, visit the product selector or contact us today.