Adhesives & Sealants Industry Top Stories

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The Pressure Sensitive Tape Council (PSTC) will hold its inaugural Tape Week May 2-5 at the Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The event will offer educational sessions, an exhibition, and many networking opportunities.

The 2022 World Adhesive and Sealant Conference (WAC2022) will be held this month in Chicago, and I’m thrilled that our global industry will have the opportunity to reconnect, safely and in person. WAC2022 will offer fascinating keynotes, a broad range of technical sessions, the much-anticipated EXPO, and plenty of opportunities to connect with colleagues.

As the needs of the packaging industry evolve, adhesive converters face new challenges. The recent growth in e-commerce and food delivery services, for example, has converters looking for efficient ways to quickly slit and rewind large rolls of labels and tapes. Demand is also increasing for user-friendly products such as easy-to-remove split liners. A variety of machinery solutions help converters meet these new requirements.

It is with great pleasure, excitement, and anticipation that we officially host our first Tape Week event this May 2-5 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., with 500+ attendees from 100 companies and 10 countries expected. Representing both a reinvigoration of our historically successful Tape Summit and a refocus and expansion of PSTC’s reach, Tape Week is the only knowledge-building and networking event for pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tape professionals.

With the diminishing list of available preservatives, manufacturers need new candidates with exemplary safe use profiles. Recently, sodium benzoate has become increasingly valued outside of its traditional food and beverage applications, moving into cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, home care, and industrial applications.

Adhesives are used in a wide range of applications, such as transportation (automotive, rail) and architectural, among many others. Though the adhesives themselves are not directly exposed to the environment in most of these applications, one or more weathering factors can still affect the adhesive performance.

Originally scheduled for 2020 and postponed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 World Adhesive and Sealant Conference is set for April 25-27 at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Ill. Adhesives and sealants professionals from around the world will finally be able to gather together over three days and learn about the latest advances the industry has to offer while reconnecting with their colleagues and making new contacts.

What factors are influencing all of the merger and acquisition activity we’ve seen in the past year or so? Check out “Continued Consolidation in the Adhesives and Sealants Sector” for details.

Our hope is that you use this issue’s sourcing guide and the online Raw Materials, Chemicals, Polymers, and Additives Handbook in tandem as trusted tools for researching materials and locating suppliers throughout the year.

Noninvasive glucose monitoring devices are not currently commercially available in the U.S., so people with diabetes must collect blood samples or use sensors embedded under the skin to measure their blood sugar levels. With a new wearable device created by Penn State researchers, however, less-intrusive glucose monitoring could become the norm.