Improving water-based adhesives Development Department of Company D, a Film Manufacturer
Switching from solvent to water-based adhesives posed unexpected challenges
Achieved high adhesion and safety with waterborne polymer crosslinker
Company D manufactures a large number of functional films. There is a high demand for PET film-based functional films, and the company needed to change the adhesive used from the current solvent-based to a water-based adhesive in consideration of VOC regulations. The company started development, but faced several challenges along the way.
Challenges
Water-based crosslinkers do not provide satisfactory adhesive performance, and there is even a risk of unnecessary by-products being generated...
The problem arose during the film lamination adhesion process. When bonding a functional film to a base film, the water-based adhesive compounded by Company D did not meet the adhesive requirements under some test conditions.
Mr. X from the Development Department looks back on the situation at that time as follows:
"We searched for and repeatedly tested various water-based cross-linking agents to be combined with the base agent in water-based adhesives. However, we were unable to obtain adhesion that met our specifications, and the results were always disappointing."
Furthermore, depending on the crosslinking agent used, there are some combinations that produce unnecessary by-products, so great care must be taken when selecting the crosslinking agent.
"Switching to water-based adhesives would not only improve the environmental friendliness of our products, but it would also have the benefit of improving the health and safety of the workers involved in manufacturing on-site, so we wanted to make this a reality somehow," said Mr. X.
Mr. X and his team continued to test several combinations, but the results were the same and there were no signs of improvement. Since there was a development deadline, they decided to expand their scope even more than before and continue to gather information on water-based crosslinking agents.
Key Challenges
Water-based adhesives do not provide satisfactory adhesive performance.
Some combinations of crosslinking agents may produce unnecessary by-products.
To improve the health and safety of workers at manufacturing sites, we would like to switch to water-based adhesives.