Structural Acrylic Adhesives are characterized by their high bond strength and wide range of material compatibility. Their applications are in demanding structural bonding, which makes it crucial to choose the correct type in employment.
This guide covers basic information of Structural Acrylic Adhesives and its applications in Industrial Manufacturing, specifically in Electronics, Constructions & Medical.
Structural Acrylic Adhesives basic guide
Acrylic adhesives are mixed of acrylic resin and a hardening agent. Although they can bond all substrates with fast cure times and no requirement of surface preparation, these adhesives often don’t have much flexibility and contain a distinct odor.
Also, there are some types of adhesives that have an acrylic nature but aren’t categorized as acrylic adhesives. For instance:
- Anaerobic adhesives are classified as anaerobics though they have acrylic chemistry base. These adhesives are employed for thread sealing, threadlocking, retaining, and gasketing metal components. The cure process happens in the condition with no oxygen and the adhesives are in contact with metal (when the adhesive is confined between two metal surfaces.)
- UV curable adhesives may be of acrylic nature but categorized by their cure mechanism (UV).
- Cyanoacrylate adhesives are acrylic but classified as cyanoacrylate (or instant adhesives). Normally, they are called super glues or crazy glues.
- Methylmethacrylate adhesives are a type of acrylic adhesive that can be grouped in acrylic category or isolated out as MMA’s.
The reason for these names (which can be confusing) is to use cure mechanism as an easier way to distinguish them because there are too many types of Acrylic Adhesives available. To illustrate, as mentioned above, anaerobic acrylic adhesives both substrates need to be metal, and the adhesive/sealant must be in between two surfaces or cured with an activator.
In industrial bonding applications, structural acrylic adhesives can support high structural load when fully cured and are generally divided into subcategories by applications. They also provide impact and vibration resistance, high temperature limits, and durable bonds in severe environments.
Acrylic adhesives in Electronics
Electronics industry is one of the industries that has high requirements on adhesive performance since they often need to join two pieces together quickly and efficiently.
- Bonding dissimilar components: Acrylic adhesives’ overall composition allows them to combine any electronic metallic parts easily. Metal electric parts that have been dismantled but can still work after joining again will receive great benefit from these adhesives strong bond properties. Besides metal components, acrylic adhesives also work well with glass, neoprene, polycarbonates, and polyesters – as long as these materials are under polar substrates category. Their ability to work with dissimilar materials makes them pliable and cost-effective.
- PCB Solutions:
Avoid degradation of conductive materials: A common issue with solution-based adhesives is off-gas condition when electronic devices heat up. This is because these adhesives contain retained moisture, monomers, tackifiers or solvents. This can also result in fogging on surface or condensation on circuits – both of which often lead to the degradation of conductive materials – which is considered product failure.
This problem can be solved using UV Acrylic adhesives due to its temperature resistance feature. Not only can they be applied to printed circuit boards, conductive inks, flexible circuit sandwiches or membrane witch, but they also work for hard-drive gasketing, electro luminescence, spaces tapes, and device assembly.
Acrylic adhesives in Constructions
Acrylic adhesives have both paste and liquid forms – while paste adhesives are often used in day-to-day construction projects, liquid type is applied for carpentry or upholstery applications or shadowed areas in construction.
- Resistance to external factors: Acrylics adhesives are preferable in Constructions industry on account of its ability to perform across wide temperature range – from 0F (-18C) to over 240F (115C). This feature ensures the construction to proceed uninterrupted despite challenging temperature fluctuation. Also, these adhesives still perform will in freezing cold and ascending heat by providing adhesive anchorage owing to its exceptional flow and surface penetration properties.
- High compatibility: Acrylic adhesive can achieve extraordinary adhesion without primers, which contributes to save time and installation costs during building envelope construction. Because the components do not contain solvents or volatile organic compounds (VOCs), acrylic adhesives are environmentally friendly and widely compatible with other building materials. The latter is important to installers because it cuts out the risk of sealant degradation, debonding and reactions with material surfaces that can occur when incompatible materials are in contact with each other.
- Strong bond to ensure durability and long performance: These adhesives can also withstand climatic change in the long-term period. Even under repeating fluctuating weather conditions, such as wide temperature variation, heavy wind, rain and snowy events, acrylic adhesives maintain its adhesion with minimal material shift. Another notable feature to guarantee the building durability is its strong bond performance to bear the stresses when building components move over time, such as the shear forces of moving materials causing to walls and roofs. This is because acrylic adhesives have high peel adhesive and cohesive strength that helps to increase bonding strength and better performance. Also, this usage helps to ensure the aesthetic of a building’s exterior by keeping materials in place.
Medical Applications of Acrylic adhesive
- In the medical diagnostic arena: Human body’s internal chemistries are exceedingly sensitive and easily altered. For example, with in-vitro diagnostics – which includes taking samples of these body chemistries for testing, all materials involved – including adhesives – must be extremely clean and pure to ensure accurate testing. Thanks to its low chemical reactivity, acrylic adhesives are the most preferred for these applications and are commonly used in lateral flow tests, microfluidics, autofluorescence, DNA microarrays and PCR devices.
- In medical supplies: Acrylic adhesives are often employed for suturing wounds application to reduce infection and scarring. Some kinds of these adhesives, such as pressure sensitive tapes, are common components for bandages and disposable applications.
Acrylic adhesive in other industries
Another benefit to be highlighted about acrylic adhesives is that they can be employed in applications that demand cross-linking since they are chemically cross-linked.
Examples of these applications include:
- Industries with high temperature requirements like electronics, electronics, appliance, heat shielding and reflectors, and insulating materials.
- Industries that require chemical resistance to hydraulic fluids, motor oils and fuels, organic solvents, moisture and detergents.
- Industries that require chemical resistance to substrates such as highly plasticized or leaching films, rubbers and foams.
- Industries with high cohesive-strength applications like fixture mounting, signage or display mounting, architectural panels and structural glazing.
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