At Dal-bac manufacturing, one of our specialties is the coating of pressure sensitive adhesives. These products are often referred to as “peel and stick” adhesives or “sticky back tapes”. Pressure sensitive adhesives, or PSA’s, are versatile, adaptable and can be used for a wide variety of applications across a broad range of expected conditions. The adhesives are applied to substrate materials and covered by a release paper, or film, that is removed to expose the adhesive. The release paper or film is removed when applying the adhesive to the target surface. The critical element is making sure that the adhesive anchors securely to both the host substrate and the target surface.
Getting both Sides to “Stick”
The expectation for pressure sensitive adhesives is that both sides will remain firmly anchored in all expected conditions. This can be challenging because the target surface and the substrate surface are frequently quite different. Choosing the best adhesive that can meet the anchoring needs for the original substrate and the target surface is the key to effective PSA solutions. When the surface characteristics between the two surfaces are substantially different, additional measures may be needed to ensure that anchoring expectations can be met. In this situation PSA manufacturers typically use one of two ways to resolve the situation:
- Corona Treating: This is a micro-etching that promotes improved anchorage.
- Double coated PSA’s: This solution uses two different adhesives on opposite sides of a support film or carrier. The adhesive on one side is matched to the primary substrate and the other side is matched to the target surface.
Both of these solutions are effective alternatives, however they both entail added time and costs. Also; the double coating approach could compromise the “hand” of the finished product resulting in the finished product becoming too stiff.
At Dal-Bac we can offer a proprietary technique that is often more effective and efficient.
The Dal-Bac answer for PSA’s
Our mission at Dal-Bac is to exceed our customer’s expectations. Through our ISO 9001:2015 certified processes we are constantly looking to improve how we service our customers. A key part of this is looking for innovative ways to improve our processes and products to better meet the needs of our customers. For pressure sensitive adhesives the result of our continuous improvement has been the development of a proprietary technique that allow us to boost the anchorage of PSA’s across a wide variety of challenging substrates. Our engineering and production teams are able to adapt the process for both original and target substrates.
If you are looking for pressure sensitive adhesives that will anchor the way you need, and expect, them to – Dal-Bac can help make it stick.