{"id":30395,"date":"2024-11-07T10:32:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T10:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/permabond.com\/bond-challenging-plastics-easily-with-permabond\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T10:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T10:33:19","slug":"bond-challenging-plastics-easily-with-permabond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/permabond.com\/es\/bond-challenging-plastics-easily-with-permabond\/","title":{"rendered":"Bond challenging plastics easily with Permabond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you having trouble bonding certain types of plastics?<\/b><\/h4>\n

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Despite what many may think, not all plastics are the same, or even similar. When it comes to adhesive bonding, some plastics are much more challenging to work with than others. Before selecting an adhesive for your plastic, you need to take into account the <\/span>nature<\/span><\/i> of the plastic first. This is because some very commonly used plastics, such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) are hydrophobic<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA plastic that\u2019s scared of water?!\u201d we hear you say. Not quite. If a plastic is hydrophobic, it means that it has a low surface energy, and therefore poor wettability – instead of a liquid spreading out smoothly and evenly over the surface, it will clump together and resist spreading. Think of a freshly waxed car bonnet that gets rained on, and you\u2019ll know exactly what we mean by a hydrophobic surface! This is a problem for adhesives, since they are liquid and need good surface wettability to properly \u2018soak\u2019 into a substrate and form an effective bond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Which kinds of plastic are harder to bond?\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n

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Plastics known as <\/span>polyolefins <\/b>are the likely culprits you\u2019ll come across as being challenging to bond well. These include the aforementioned PE and PP, as well as LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) and EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer rubber.) These plastics have an enormous variety of uses and are found everywhere, from plastic bags and bottles, pipes and containers, all the way to more hidden uses in carpets, roofing and decking. <\/span>Nylon <\/b>(also known as polyamide)<\/span> is another type of plastic which is harder to bond. While not a polyolefin, nylon exhibits the same poor surface wettability as polyolefins, as well as absorbing the moisture from the air around it, which makes adhesion especially difficult.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The table below shows the surface energies of a variety of common plastics. The energy of a surface is measured in dynes\/cm. The lower the surface energy, the harder it is for an adhesive to ‘wet’ a substrate. Normally, an adhesive needs to have a lower surface energy than the substrate to form an effective bond.<\/p>\n

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Traditionally, low surface energy plastics require quite intensive (and often expensive and\/or dangerous) processes to pre-treat the surface before an adhesive can be used. These vary from plasma or corona treatment, to chemical etching and flame treating the surface of the plastic. With Permabond, thankfully there\u2019s no need to continue with these costly, com<\/span>plex and sometimes dangerous surface pre-treatments. <\/span><\/p>\n

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How Permabond can help you overcome these challenges<\/b><\/h4>\n

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We offer a variety of options for easily bonding polyolefins. Let\u2019s start with our TA46XX range of structural acrylic adhesives. These bond exceptionally well to polyolefins such as PP and PE, as well as to other types of plastic, metals and many other materials. The way that TA46XX works to bond polyolefins is rather unique – through a reaction with oxygen, these adhesives chemically \u2018attack\u2019 the surface of the polyolefin to form an incredibly strong bond. This process therefore completely negates the need for costly surface pre-treatment before bonding.<\/span><\/p>\n

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TA46XX Range Features & Benefits:<\/h4>\n