The composites industry is full of interesting technologies and products. In the world of composites, diversity can be seen at every turn.

Material formulators continue to define and develop new formulations of epoxies, silicones, polyurethanes, and acrylics for their customers’ product assembly applications.

We are formulating acrylic adhesives (both reactive acrylics and anaerobics), but are having problems with the sourcing of monomers. Some suppliers can’t seem to give us monomers that produce shelf-stable products, even though they purport to have added extra free-radical stabilizers. Can you offer some advice?

QUESTION: We have been advised to use an organosilane adhesion promoter in an acrylic adhesive to bond glass to metal.

QUESTION: We are attempting to bond and seal a small steel casting onto a steel plate.

The prevailing trend toward the use of lighter weight and lower cost engineered plastics in automotive, construction, aerospace, electronics, and other industrial uses has created a need for pressure-sensitive materials that can bond well to these new, inherently low-surface-energy (LSE) plastics. This article discusses novel, all-acrylic compositions with inherently lower surface energy that display significantly improved adhesion to LSE substrates such as polyethylene and polypropylene.