General Silicones (GS), has announced a solution for using hot-melt adhesives (HMA) with silicone rubber sheets during factory mass production.
Over the past decades, the use of hot melt adhesives grew in importance for product assembly. A growing number of industries are relying on HMA. Industry forecasts project continuous growth of HMA use for the coming years.
Achieving adhesion for silicone rubber with HMA is difficult due to silicone's low surface energy. Allowing HMA to act as an interlayer adhesive, the Compo-SiL silicone rubber offers a deciding innovation for the HMA industry. HMA users can now take advantage not only two bind two dissimilar and lower surface energy material (silicone) but also getting various benefits that silicone rubber provides.
GS produces silicone rubber sheets with a thin modified Polyurethane (PU) layer bonded to the silicone rubber. The PU layer allows the HMA interlayer adhesive to adhere/bond to the Compo-SiL silicone rubber sheet if given proper process parameters. Heat and Pressure in adequate amounts is necessary for strong adhesion and bonding. With the application of heat the HMA melts and adheres to the surfaces properly when it is compressed. Solidification of the HMA interlayer adhesive depends on the amount of heat provided, thus it should be adequate so as to incur proper and faster solidification.
HMA are solvent-free and low VOC emission adhesives. They match with medical-grade silicone and act to avoid and minimise plastic for green products.
Textile electronics-based companies can use the printable silicone film. With the printable silicone film, flexible/stretchable circuits are could be realised by inkjet printing or screen printing and bonded to textiles with HMA.