Product Showcase: Adhesives That Are Made to Stick - June 2014

Ashland Laminating Adhesives
Ashland Performance Materials is introducing a portfolio of laminating adhesives that enhance food safety in flexible packages. Marketed under the SAFECURE and PURELAM trade names, the new adhesives have extremely low migration, are solvent-free, and can be cured at room temperature to help converters reduce overall costs and operate more efficiently. According to Ashland, the SAFECURE product can lower the overall cost of the package because it allows sealant film down-gauging. Ashland says its PURELAM A9500/B9240 has the lowest aromatic amine migration on the market today without sacrificing operator ease of use or lamination performance. www.ashland.com

Franklin Rolls out New Brands
Franklin Adhesives & Polymers produces a full offering of high-performance pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) to produce removable, permanent and repositionable tapes and labels for a range of substrates. Sold under the Acrynax, Covinax and Micronax brands, these PSAs offer various combinations of peel, tack and shear strength for specific applications – from packaging frozen foods to labels for “marine use” that adhere through extremely humid conditions. All of these PSAs are water-based, solventfree formulations, so are water-cleanable and safe for the environment. www.franklinadhesivesandpolymers.com

Flint has Options for Wet or Dry Adhesives
Flint Group Narrow Web offers a variety of both UV curable and water-based adhesives for the narrow web and mid web label and package printing converter. Available in water-based or UV curable versions, Flint Narrow Web adhesives can be used with many different ink technologies, and cure at high printing speeds. Flint Group also offers lamination adhesives, pressure sensitive adhesives, and cold foiling adhesives. UV laminating adhesives are designed for film to film or paper to film applications using “wet” or “dry” lamination. Other Flint Group adhesives are designed for use in shrink sleeve and cold foiling processes. www.flintgrp.com

FLEXcon’s New Flexibles
sureFLEX is a new 2 mil flexible clear BOPP film with a new generation V-01 adhesive. The adhesive works with a wide range of container types, including irregularly-shaped surfaces or large panel surfaces. It provides excellent resistance to water, humidity and product contents, preventing edge lift and water whitening of the label. The film functions well in full squeeze tube applications and will withstand the crimp process. Haze level is low for no-label-look graphics on HDPE and PET containers, and the print-receptive surface is compatible with a wide range of conventional inks. www.FLEXcon.com/sureFLEX

Lohmann Mounting Tapes
For converters, adhesives are not just part of the package being produced—they are also part of the printing and converting process. Plate changes need to be fast and accurate, making selection of plate mounting tapes an important part of a converter’s work processes. Lohmann supplies double sided adhesive tapes along with a variety of hot melt coating, converting and die-cutting equipment. This merger of skill sets enables Lohmann’s “bonding engineeers” to offer converters a unique resource when developing double-coated adhesive solutions and support global specifications through individual product development of innovative adhesive designs. www.lohmanncorp.com

Novamelt
Novamelt offers a wide range of hot melt pressure-sensitive adhesives based on thermoplastic rubber. These are suitable for nearly every self-adhesive application from lowadhesion products to very tacky, permanent products. Common applications include self-adhesive labels, tapes, plasters, and flexible packaging. Self-adhesive technology offers an intelligent and economical alternative to mechanical fastening processes. Novamelt also offers label stock manufacturers both standard and custom developed adhesives suitable for nearly every application within a wide adhesion range including permanent, removable and deep-freezer labels. www.novamelt.com

Royal Adhesives
The printing, packaging, and laminating division of Royal Adhesives and Sealants manufactures water-based and UV/EB curable adhesives for many printing, packaging, and label applications. Royal offers remoistenable water-based adhesives, spine and/or pocket glues, cohesive/cold seal glues, and pressure sensitive adhesives Royal also provides repositionable microsphere (removable)adhesives for note pads, labels and stickers. www.royaladhesives.com

Technicote
Technicote has two new microsphere (removable) adhesives (see sidebar) that are designed to help converters differentiate their offerings. TR-1 is formulated for both paper and film, while TM-55 is meant for paper facestocks. The spheres that create the adhesion have an operating range of 0 to 150 degrees (F) and comply with FDA 175.105 for indirect food contact. Pattern adhesive coating capabilities are also available on both TM-55 and TR-1 products. www.technicoat.com

Wausau Coated Products
Wausau provides pressure sensitive construction with UV, hot-melt, and acrylic adhesives, printable topcoats and custom release liners. Wausau Coated’s offerings include a variety of film and label facestocks manufactured with FDA-approved adhesives specifically intended for health and beauty applications, as well as a wide range of adhesives and liners for wine label applications. Wausau also offers custom roll and sheet products and will work with converters to develop a pressure sensitive product to meet specific needs. www.wausaucoated.com

THE MORE YOU KNOW:

Microsphere Adhesives
Peel off a Post-It note and take out a loupe. Now look at the adhesive on the sticky side edge of the note. With a 10X loupe you can see a lot of tiny balls of various sizes. Those balls are all adhesives and the different sizes limit the physical contact of the note with the substrate, which is what lets a repositionable label be removable.

But it’s not just for sticky notes and peel-off labels. New water-based microspheres have gained FDA approval for indirect food contact. How does this matter for packaging? Microspheres—noted here from both Royal Adhesives and Technicote—can be a less expensive solution for resealing opened containers such as bags or pouches. Microspheres let consumers easily and repeatedly reseal a container via an adhesive strip, flap, or section of the container.

UV Lamination
In UV-cured “wet” lamination the adhesive is applied, the lamination is made, and the UV adhesive is cured through the clear over-laminate. With “dry” lamination, the adhesive is UV cured prior to laminating.