All manufacturers in the furniture and building components markets utilize adhesives to assemble their products. Polyurethane (PUR) hotmelt adhesives are preferred for demanding applications such as edge-banding, flat-lamination and profile wrapping, as they offer:
- Best-in-class heat resistance
- Unmatched moisture resistance
- Broad adhesion spectrum
- Low adhesive application weight
During application, PUR hotmelts are heated to molten state and cured with moisture, forming a crosslinked polymer with resistance to heat and chemicals. This versatile ‘building block’ can be used to build a near-infinite variety of polymers, which enable the adhesive to bond to different substrates (including wood, plastics, glass and most metals), compensating for their different degrees of thermal expansion and finally offering a best-in-class array of properties:
- Broad range of applications (edge banding, straight-line, soft forming, surface bonding, lamination, profile wrapping)
- High heat resistance (>150°C/>302°F) and cold flexibility
- Excellent moisture and solvent resistance
PUR hotmelt adhesives are formed from isocyanates (technically diisocyanates) and polyols. These combine to make an intermediate ‘precursor’ that will be cured at our customers’ premises to form a completely cross-linked polymer with extremely high molecular weight. This is what is known as a reactive product; such products still contain a small amount of free monomeric, highly reactive diisocyanates.