How did Advanced Adhesives achieve structural bonding of the ‘un-bondable’?

Advanced Adhesives has for many years now supplied its PP3000 Structural Adhesive for bonding low surface energy plastics such as PP, HDPE etc.

Formulated for a large automotive application back in 2014 and now used in many automotive applications, together with other difficult-to bond-applications in industry, PP3000 has been very successful in a number of difficult bonding applications. “However, is there now a better adhesive in the wings looking to continue blazing the trail of excellence along which PP3000 has developed?” asks the company.

PP3000 was initially formulated for the successful bonding of an IP for a UK automotive client’s vehicle – a dashboard. The dashboard was to be made from PP to give a weight saving over the existing material its dashboards were traditionally made from, However, being made from PP, there were difficulties in bonding, until PP3000 was formulated.

Since its development, PP3000 has been utilised for many applications in automotive, sporting goods, like skateboards, tennis rackets etc, renewable electrical power generation equipment, white goods manufacturers and general engineering, successfully helping bond, what some people think of as being ‘the impossible’, states Advanced Adhesives.

Non-icing on the cake

Always ambitious to improve on the best, and having listened to customer feedback, the chemistry team at Advanced Adhesives was tasked with trying to improve the PP3000 with a product not requiring refrigeration and having a longer shelf life: Enter PP5000.

PP5000 is a 10:1 mix Structural Bonder, giving the same performance of its original counterpart PP3000, states the company: "however, with no requirement for refrigeration and with that 12-month shelf life we were aiming for".

Adds Advanced Adhesives: “PP5000 is set to become the ‘go-to' product for design engineers looking to use low surface energy plastics within their products, without having the worry of ‘how do we bond this material?'. Bonding the likes of PP, HDPE, PE structurally now is a reality and bond strength surpasses that of the plastic itself, together with plastic-welded components.”

Anticipation high

The Applications Centre within Advanced Adhesives is said to be buzzing with anticipation, which it was seven years ago with the launch of the original PP Bonder - PP3000. “The flood of new customer applications we have in product testing with the PP5000 is well underway, turning these new potential customers dreams of bonding a notoriously difficult to bond material into reality and solving issues with their applications,” adds the company.

Graham Crozier, technical director and application specialist at Advanced Adhesives, is highly enthused, saying: “We could have just sat on our laurels with the PP3000 development. However, as a company, we pride ourselves in not only understanding a customer’s application, but also the production line process and pushing ourselves to offer the best we can to both the application and the production process.

“PP5000 is a game changer, in that the team have managed to develop a product with genuine structural strength comparative to the PP3000, but increasing shelf life by 100%, and a product which doesn’t require refrigeration, which has sometimes been an issue with production line manufacturing.

“I’m proud of the team who have developed the PP5000.” he continues, “but now the real work starts with an already long list of new applications ready and waiting to be tested in the Application Centre at Advanced Adhesives, where we continue to solve difficult bonding applications.”