Articles - Building & Construction - Market Spotlight

WOOD GLUES

Adhesives for bonding wood have been around for literally thousands of years. The very first ones were natural gums and plant resins. Native Americans used adhesives derived from buffalo hoofs and animal fat. Some of the earliest wood adhesives used...
An Introduction to the Building and Construction Market

There are many applications in the building and construction industries for adhesives and sealants. These materials are highly valued because they can be formulated to set outdoors in a relatively short period of time, they have good adhesion to a...
Hot Melt Sealants

The sealants industry has seen significant changes in recent years. Many of these changes are the result of demands from new substrates or for improved performance characteristics. However, some of the more rewarding changes have been due to demands...
Alternatives for Joining Plastics – Part III: Solvent Cementing

Each design engineer must determine the joining method that best suits the purpose. The choice will often depend on the type of plastic, the service environment, economic and time constraints, and production parameters...
Cold Seal Adhesives

Cold seal adhesives are a special class of pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) that possess the capabilities of forming a strong bond to themselves at room temperature when only slight pressure is applied...
Alternatives for Joining Plastics – Part II: Thermal Welding

Each design engineer must determine the joining method that best suits the purpose. The choice will often depend on the type of plastic, the service environment, economic and time constraints, and production parameters...
Alternatives for Joining Plastics – Part I: Mechanical and Self-Fastening

An essential ingredient in many manufacturing operations is the knowledge of how to join parts made from plastics to themselves and to other substrates. The joining processes that can be used will be dependent on the type of polymeric resin and the...
Adhesive Bonding of Glass and Ceramic Substrates

Glass and ceramic substrates are generally high surface energy materials, and most adhesives wet them readily. A wide range of adhesive products can be used when bonding a glass or ceramic substrate to itself or to other substrates...
Choosing the Correct Mold Release - And Then Having to Remove It

Mold release agents act as an interface between the mold surface and the material being molded, allowing the part to separate cleanly and easily from the mold...
Solvent Cementing of Plastics

The joining of plastics with adhesives is generally made more difficult because of the low surface energy, poor wettability, and presence of weak boundary layers that are often associated with these substrates...
Use of ultrafine PCC in construction and glazing sealant

Ultrafine Precipitated Calcium Carbonate disperse easily into the sealant mix and helps in optimizing both pre-cure rheological properties as well as tensile properties of the cured sealant... This article outlines the benefits of using PCC in...
Cure Monitoring of Adhesives

Cure monitoring of adhesives is used to improve the efficiency of processing, for quality assurance, and to study the curing process. Cure monitoring techniques can generally be separated into two broad categories: indirect methods and direct...
New Epoxy Tougheners Widen the Adhesive-Formulating Window

Since their introduction in the late 1940s, epoxy resins have found widespread use in adhesives, sealants, flooring, paints and electrical applications. Modification of epoxy-resin systems by additives, modifiers, fillers, plasticizers and other...
Cellular (Foam) Adhesives

The foaming of an adhesive within a joint is often an undesirable situation. However, in certain circumstances adhesives are purposely designed to foam or expand. There are several performance and production benefits that can be gained from an...
Going Green

This article discusses the use of pine chemicals in the adhesives industry. Pine chemicals are renewable, naturally occurring materials derived from the pine tree (genus Pinus). The range of chemical classes obtained from pine trees includes numerous...
Epoxy Hybrid Adhesives

A variety of polymers, both thermosets as well as thermoplastics, can be blended and co-reacted with epoxy resins to provide for a specific set of desired properties. The most common of these are nitrile, phenolic, nylon, polysulfide, and...
How Moisture Affects Adhesive and Sealant Joints - Part I

Moisture is the substance that causes the greatest difficulties in terms of environmental stability for many bonded or sealed joints. Water can be an exceptional problem because it is very polar and permeates most polymers. Other common fluids, such...
Adhesive bonding of wood and wood based products Par 3: Different types of adhesives: thermosetting adhesives, PU, hot melts, etc…

These adhesives or glues have been developed a long time ago: urea-formaldehyde ( UF ) and phenolics (PF) started in the years 1920, melamine-formaldehyde ( MF ) and resorcinol-formaldehyde ( RF )a little bit later. However all are still in use, in...
Sealants Based on Acrylic Emulsions

Since the introduction of waterborne sealants in the 1960s, acrylic emulsion formulations have matured commercially as intermediate performance architectural sealants...
Reactive polyurethane adhesives for bonding wood

Polyurethane adhesives vary significantly in their composition and are used in many different applications in a broad range of market segments.
Polymers for Roads and Bridges

This article reviews the development of adhesives and sealants for roads and bridges and describes the advantages that they provide. It focuses on advanced rehabilitation, retrofitting and strengthening technologies for existing civil engineering...
Asphalt-Modified Polyurethanes Show Advantages in Construction Sealants

The unique compatibility of Poly bd resin with asphalt allows formulators to make a new variety of polymer - modified asphalt systems used in construction market.
Sealant Joint Design

Joint sealing plays an important part in the overall performance of many products - from automobile engine components to large buildings.
Innovation in Adhesive and Sealant Materials - Additives

During the past year or two, many new resins and additives have been introduced on the market. Adding significantly to the adhesive formulator's toolbox, these new products can be used to build innovative adhesive systems meeting the demanding...
Moisture Curing Mechanisms for Adhesives and Sealants

Moisture surrounds us, and it is abundant and costs nothing. Wouldn't it be fantastic if moisture could be used as a component in curing adhesives and sealants? And even more amazing if the products would cure without mixing, evaporation of solvent,...
Nondestructive Testing

Nondestructive testing (NDT) is nothing new. Applications for the non-destructive evaluation of adhesive joints date back to the early 1970s. The first pioneers used ultrasonic and infrared methods to detect voids and loose bonds in poorly made...
Building & Construction Adhesives Part VI: Structural and semi-structural applications, durability superior to 20 years

The article reviews the structural end uses, ie; the uses where the mechanical strength exceeds 5 to 10 Mpa in tensile shear strength and the durability exceeds 20 years, so that the strength and durability of the adhesive bonds are, more or less,...
Building & Construction Adhesives Part V: Non structural applications and durability less than 20 years. On site applied adhesives

In the previous parts we have studied the various types of adhesives which are used in Construction, and their technical characteristics.
Building & Construction Adhesives - Part IV Chemical types of adhesives used in construction: structural and semi-structural adhesives

All construction adhesives used on site should cure or dry at ambient temperatures ie 12 to 35°C according to seasons and countries, because there is no heating devices on sites...
Building & Construction Adhesives Part III: Chemical types of adhesives used in construction: non structural adhesives

In this part we will review these various non structural adhesives, their formulation, their technical characteristics and performances, and provide examples of their applications.
Building & Construction Adhesives Part II: Technical Characteristics of Construction Adhesives

Construction ( of housings, plants, shops...) and civil engineering are the largest markets for adhesives, in tons and also in Euros, because large surfaces and thick joints are involved.
Building & Construction Adhesives Part I: General Information and Rules

New developments in the building and construction field have reduced the overall process time and improved quality owing much to the improvements in the performance of adhesives which are now easier to apply and fast in setting. This is the first...
Woodworking and furniture adhesives
Applications and end uses

This article studies the first series of applications and end uses of woodworking and furniture adhesives i.e; panels manufacturing and primary woodworking. Primary woodworking encompasses adhesives and binders for the production of various types of...
Sealants for Construction Part III-2: Elastomeric, High Performances Sealants

This article discusses the chemical types of elastomeric sealants used in construction industry. These sealants may be considered as high performances sealants because they have high capabilities of movement, service elongation from 15 to 40 %.
Sealants for Construction Part III-1: The different chemical types of construction (and civil engineering) sealants

Before world war 2 there was no sealants in the way we understand it now: joints between different materials, such as between glass, metals, wood, concrete.. were filled with some traditional caulks, based on oleoresins, such as linseed oil, or...
Sealants for Construction Part II: Technical Characteristics of sealants

Before we study the different types of construction sealants and their formulation, we must explain what are their technical characteristics and properties.
Sealants for Construction Part I: General information, movements of construction elements, definition of terms, requirements

Before World war 2, buildings were built with traditional materials: concrete, bricks, sometimes wood, steel frames in the american skyscrapers, the construction was homogeneous ( the structure was made of a single material ), and therefore there was...