Adhesives & Sealants
Adhesives and sealants are used in just about every product you can imagine. The need for lightweight design, use of multi-materials and curved designs is driving the demand for high performance adhesives in the electronics, construction, transportation and packaging end markets.
Increased and stricter legislation and labelling in end market applications, the need to provide sustainable adhesive solutions and to continuously offer performance benefits to adhesives applications, are playing an increasing role in adhesive formulations.
The consumption of adhesives increases with the growth of the global economy and adhesives are replacing traditional joining technologies, especially for lightweight composites and small electronic materials. Waterborne adhesives are used more for their environmental friendliness. Hotmelt and reactive adhesives are growing in popularity due to their high performance and drive for low VOC.
Croda offers an extensive range of sustainable monomers, polyols, additives and surfactants to improve the adhesive performance and environmental profile of adhesive formulations.
Adhesives & sealants product guide
How our products benefit adhesives and sealant formulations
The most used chemistries in the adhesive and sealant markets are:
- Polyurethane
- Polyamide
- Polyester
- Epoxy
- Polyacrylate and vinyl acetate
These can be applied in hot melt, (liquid) reactive, water based and solvent based adhesives.
Our sustainable products offer the unique combination of durability and enhanced adhesion strength to many substrates which opens new opportunities, for example in high-tech sporting goods, new energy systems, transportation, electronics and design furniture.
Our Priplast range of polyester polyols offers flexibility to the resin and the hydrocarbon character imparts excellent water repellency. The polyol can be built into the polyurethane by reacting with isocyanates.
This Priplast technology offers unique benefits to polyurethane adhesives such as:
- Durability: a unique combination of thermo-oxidative and hydrolysis resistance
- Moisture repellency of the final adhesive, also achieved for PU dispersions
- Adhesion to a wide range of substrates, including low-polarity plastics
- Good chemical resistance
To meet the growing market demand for performance and bio-based PU adhesive formulations we have developed the 100% bio-based polyols Priplast 3238 and Priplast 3294.
Pripol dimer fatty acids and dimer diols are used as monomers in adhesives to bring flexibility, water barrier properties and improved adhesion to a broad range of many different substrates, including plastics. The flexible nature of these materials prevents shrinkage and brings relief of stress, which is especially interesting for cross-linked systems such as epoxies and radiation cured adhesives. Crodacid azelaic acid is used to formulate or modify adhesives to enhance mechanical properties, water barrier properties and flexibility. This material can bring some more crystallinity into the backbone.
In skin contact adhesives such as medical tape, our mild ingredients minimise skin irritation. Our non-ionic 100% bio-based Span, ECO Tween and ECO Brij emulsifiers products are well suited.
For adhesives used in food contact applications such as packaging for microwave meals we offer food contact approved products. In the same application, our products ensure that the adhesive resists moisture under high temperature conditions and prevents the bond line from shrinking.
Free flowing adhesives processing is provided by our Crodamide anti-tack and anti-blocking amide additives. They prevent unwanted adhesion during storage, transport and processing.
Product finder
View our range for adhesives & sealants
Sustainability case study
Automotive structural adhesives with Priplast biobased polyester polyols
Structural adhesives are widely used in automotive lightweight design applications to bond metal, plastic and composite components.
SpecialChem presents an adhesives educational webinar
Sustainable polyols for high-performance polyurethane adhesives
Priplast
Bio-based polyester polyolsOffering enhanced flexibility & versatile adhesion to polyurethanes
Read moreAutomotive coatings and plastics
Speciality ingredients for the automotive adhesives, coatings and plastics industryBuilding blocks, polymer additives and surfactants for the automotive adhesives, coatings and plastics industry
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