A Complete Guide on Wet Bond Adhesives

 

Formulated Polymer products paved the way for wet bond adhesive.  These kinds of adhesives basically involve different types of polymer products.  The most common would be elastomeric and thermoplastics.  These polymeric materials would undergo the dispersion and dissolving process in a systematic phase.  During lamination, the materials will be joined while the adhesive is still wet.  The bond formation is due to the evaporation of water or during liquid absorption.  The furniture making, packaging, and paper manufacturing industry have found the wet bond adhesive a great addition to their industry.

 

What is Wet Bond Adhesives?

 

In most cases, these wet bond adhesives are starch-free.  It made it possible to remove any food allergens issues.  It was named based on their process wherein the adhesive is utilized to laminate things in a wet form. It gives an adequate bond to porous objects, especially those made with paper.

 

Where Is It Commonly Used?

 

The wet bond adhesive is typically used in food packaging, collapsible boxes, overlays, and overwraps.  It will pass through a drying tunnel, which is a part of the lamination process during the drying process.  This type of adhesive is specifically designed for film and foil lamination to a paper product.  The primary purpose is to bond the paper product into the film and maintain the same bond while it is being used.  This adhesive is also found beneficial to fabrics, wood, leather, and other porous materials.

 

Packaging Process

 

The wet bond adhesive suppliers now produce special laminated products to meet the demands of the food packaging industries.  Most of these food products are microwaveable.  For this type of product, the adhesives must meet specific qualifications and requirements.  A vacuum or an evaporation procedure will remove the monomer, oligomers, and other low molecular weight elements present during manufacturing the polymer.

 

The type of adhesive that is usually part of the flexible packaging process is vinyl acetate, acrylic, VAE, VAA (Vinyl Acetate Acrylic), polychloroprene, and MDP.  To be an effective adhesive, it must contain a high viscosity rate, a reduced surface tension, machinability, etc.   It also needs to be porous to allow the escape of water during the process.  One of the challenges in using a wet bond adhesive is maintaining a nice damp edge on the foil or the film while laminating the paper.  Regardless of the machine's humidity or temperature, the wet bond adhesive must reach the desirable wetness on its edges.

 

The significant advantage of this type of adhesive is that it contains no VOC, also known as a volatile organic compound.  The cleanup of the adhesive is also proven easy since you only use water to clean the excess adhesives.  Major wet bond adhesive suppliers include H.B. Fuller, Henkel, Air Products,  BASF,  Rohm and Haas, etc.

note; pictures are for breaking up the paragraphs only. They are not in any way related to wet bond adhesives.