The acrylate adhesive tape is not inferior to many an Olympic athlete. When called upon, it achieves a top performance right when it's necessary. It offers all the top qualities for exactly the discipline in which it must excel – and it can be prepared for just the performance that's required.
How will the adhesive tape become a model athlete?
Technologies
Each adhesive tape has its strengths, but among adhesive tapes there are also ones that are produced for especially high performance. Acrylate adhesives and adhesive tapes are the "model athletes" among adhesive tapes.
Attaching parts to car bodies is a demanding application. The part has to stay in place in a car for its lifetime - during cold winters, wet autumns and hot summers.
Acrylate adhesive tape: Success story and properties
In 1956, for the first time, tesa introduced acrylate adhesives. They have a wealth of properties that allow for top performance: acrylate adhesive tape is especially resistant to sunshine (UV), wind and weather, solvents and pluisticizers. At tesa, acrylic adhesives are industrially produced by polymerization, otherwise known as a customized formulation. Adhesive properties of acrylic can be adjusted and precisely controlled by manipulating the selection of monomers used in the formulation, as well as the polymerization process.
In contradiction to natural rubber and synthetic rubber adhesives, acrylic adhesives are tacky by nature. Acrylic adhesives have long polymer chains that are cross-linked. This cross-linking feature catapults acrylic adhesives into a much higher performance category than both natural rubber and synthetic rubber adhesives. To create acrylic pressure sensitive adhesives with increased immediate peel adhesion or reduced dwell time, tackifier resins are often added to the acrylic polymer. The addition of resins, however, will change the cohesiveness of the acrylic adhesive.
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Acrylic adhesives consist of long polymer chains cross-linked by different methods: chemically, by UV-Radiation, or by electron-beam hardening
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Polymerisation facility at tesa plant Hamburg
Acrylate adhesives: Properties
Acrylate adhesives share a low initial tack and the need for longer time for attachment. Besides being highly resistant to UV and ozone and insensitive to moisture, they have other advantages as well: acrylate adhesive tape is extremely transparent, which is why it is used, for example, in the joining of glass or transparent plastics. Due to the high ageing stability, it does not turn yellow. It is also extremely temperature resistant and therefore the best adhesive solution for long-term, outdoor applications. It develops its perfect tack with a good peel adhesion on polar substrates, i.e. substrates with high-energy surfaces such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyester (PET), aluminium or steel. Their properties make adhesive tapes with acrylate adhesives the perfect service providers for long-life and high-performance applications. For example when it comes to mounting parts on new cars, installing photovoltaic modules on panel racks, fixing magnets in electric engines, constructing metal and glass furniture or holding parts of façade modules in place.
Acrylate adhesive tape is extremely resistant to UV radiation, extreme temperatures, humidity and climate conditions, solvents and pluisticizers
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Acrylic adhesives can be coated in a "traditional" way with solvents (water or chemicals) or solvent-free like the process described above: The ingredients are heated, mixed and cross-linked in a spacial extruding process and afterwards directly coated on the backing.
Olympic-ready performance
Acrylate adhesive tape reveals its full potential, however, when high performance applications require it. Façade elements bonded with tesa ACXplus® acrylate tape can easily withstand the strongest earthquake of the century (in 2010) or a cyclone. “Permanently holding together important components under extreme conditions" may not be an Olympic discipline, but it is real top performances, which must be delivered not only for a few hundredths of a second or hours, but also for many years.
