Photocrosslinking of solvent-based acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA) by the use of selected photoinitiators type I

Abstract

This study investigated the photocrosslinking of solvent-based acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA) containing selected photoinitiators type I, known as α-cleavage photoinitiators. Photocrosslinking of PSA, especially of acrylic PSA, is well established crosslinking process using the UV radiation technology. UV-initiated crosslinking of acrylic PSA allows the synthesis of the wide range of UV-crosslinkable PSA with the interesting features. Especially, the important balances of properties such as adhesive and cohesive strength which are typically critical for the application performance can be achieved by this technology. The selection of suitable photoinitiator plays an important role to obtain the optimum properties of acrylic PSA including tack, peel adhesion, and shear strength. In this study, the investigations on different saturated conventional photoinitiators of type I for solvent-based PSA were carried out. The effects of photoinitiator concentration, UV crosslinking time and UV dose on the tack, peel strength, and shear strength were explored in detail for guiding the choice of photoinitiators to fabricate advanced PSA for industrial usage.

Keywords:

• photocrosslinking
• photoinitiators type I
• acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives
• tack
• peel adhesion
• shear strength

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21177032), Natural Scientific Research Innovation Foundation in Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT.NSRIF.2009122), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HIT.ICRST.2010011), and State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment (Harbin Institute of Technology) (No. 2011TS05). Special thanks for the project supported by Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-11-0805).