Construction Adhesives

An adhesive can be defined as a compound either organic or inorganic that binds two components together. It can be in the form of a liquid, paste or film. Original adhesives were natural made from plants, resins or animals. Synthetic adhesives later came into the picture. Modern adhesives are being increasingly used in constructions and industries, as they are extremely strong. Adhesives comprise of various characteristics like flexibility, toughness and chemical and temperature resistance. These characteristics have been improved with time.

Construction adhesives are used to bind concrete, cement, plastic mortar and tiles. On a smaller scale they are used on wood, dry walls, concrete, subfloors, molding, mirrors, showers and tubs, etc. While applying the adhesives to the surface, make sure the surfaces are clean and dry. Sanding of the surface should be done if necessary.

Types of construction adhesives: There are various types of adhesives used for construction purposes. Some of them are:

1) Epoxy Adhesives: It forms a major part of structural adhesives. It is available in the form of 100% solids, activator formulas and epoxy resins. It shows high resistance to chemicals, heat and water. It is observed that these adhesives when cured with heat, they show more resistance to chemicals and heat than when cured at room temperature. They are tough, cohesive, durable and tensile. Epoxy adhesives provide great results when used on glass, metal, some type of plastics, stone and wood. It can be used to bond and re-bond new concrete to old surfaces or weld structural units together. They can be also be mixed with sand to patch-up, fill or grout surfaces. These can be either fast setting or slow setting. As per ones needs, these adhesives can be flexible or rigid; translucent, transparent, opaque or even colored.

2) Rubber cement: It is from the drying adhesives family. It is made out of polymers (especially latex) that are mixed in acetone, benzene and other such solvents to retain fluidity. They are mixed in a certain composition so that the rubber cement is fluid enough to be used. The adhesive hardens when the solvents evaporate. The adhesives are weak and are mostly used for household purpose.

4) TACC: It is a waterproof material. TACC is used to bind a variety of wall panels to solid surface. They are to be preferably used on FRP panels, wallboards, hardboards, tileboards, OSB boards and other such panes. It can glue these boards and panes to plywood, concrete, new plaster and other similar surfaces. It grabs onto the surfaces quickly, but the surfaces need to be positioned after a long time.

3) Thio-poxy Adhesives: It is found through laboratory experiments that these adhesives make stronger bonds than concrete. It was used basically for patching, permanent bonding old concrete slabs or old concrete slabs to new ones. It is also used to solve the problems of structural adhesion. They show various characteristics of resisting moisture, water, shocks, contraction and expansion and vibration. It is a new tool in the hands to contractors and engineers for construction and maintenance of concrete.

Industrial Adhesives

Adhesive is defined as a thing, which is used to bond or fasten any two or more materials. Such materials have a huge demand in industries, especially the manufacturing sector. Adhesives used for domestic purpose are simply termed as adhesives, while those used in industrial application are more categorically termed as industrial adhesives. Industrial adhesives serve a very different function than the regular use adhesives. Such adhesives need to be tougher, should be able o bind in certain harsh conditions, and even bind materials that are not very easy to bind using common adhesives. Various types of adhesives used in industries are epoxies, hot melt, sealants, acrylics, thermostat and silicon adhesives.

In previous times (early use of adhesives has been found 6000 years back), natural adhesives were used, which were obtained or developed form vegetable, animal hide and skin, as well as mineral sources. However, the focus has now turned to more synthetic adhesives, and these are widely used in industries, the reason being better bonding properties, easy mass manufacturing availability, which also leads to lowering cost of such adhesives.

Different kinds of adhesives have different bonding properties, which can be used for specific purposes. While some have very good bonding properties, others can be used under certain difficult conditions, where regular adhesives cannot be used. Some adhesives are specifically used to bond particular type of materials, like metals. Hot metal adhesives, epoxy adhesives, polyurethane adhesives, sealants are some of the adhesives widely used for bonding metals.

Hot metal adhesives are the types of adhesives suitable when you need to use it repetitively. They can be alternately hardened and softened by repetitive cooling and heating. Pressure-sensitive adhesives are those, which require only a slight pressure to form a good bond. Such adhesives are available in water, solvent and latex based forms to use under different specific conditions. UV curing adhesives are another specialized kind of adhesives that require no heat, but only exposure to UV rays (which is abundant during daytime due to sunlight), or some other kind of radiation, to form a strong and permanent bond. Such adhesives come with different setting time, with some bonding instantly, while others taking a longer time to form a strong bond.

Adhesives such as acrylic, silicone, rubber and polyurethane are chemical based in comparison to the more widely used resin based adhesives. Acrylic adhesives have a very less setting time as compared to most resins. Polyurethane is highly durable and flexible, and also offers very high resistance to impact, making it the most widely used industrial adhesive.

Rubber adhesives are based on compounds like nitrile or butyl, and these offer very strong bond between surfaces, which are still highly flexible. Epoxy adhesives can withstand environmental and chemical damages and are widely used in places where the joint is likely to be exposed to atmosphere all its functional life, or maybe exposed to harsh chemicals.