Labels and Adhesives

Adhesives & Labels

• A small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or similar material attached to an object and giving information about it.

• An adhesive is a substance that sticks to the surface of an object such that two surfaces become bonded. An adhesive must wet the surfaces, adhere to the surfaces, develop strength after it has been applied in order to remain stable.

The right adhesive for your labels

• Permanent adhesives are the most common and are not designed to be removed once initial contact is made.  They work on the majority of surfaces but can have difficulty boding to some surfaces such as damp plastics.  They are not re-positionable and will leave a residue on casual removal from most surfaces.  They are very common and the default adhesive used by the majority of applications.  Choose this adhesive if you have no reason not to as it is cost effective and probably does what you want.

• Peelable adhesives are designed to allow the label to be removed, but may leave a residue on the application surface.  The long the label is on the surface, the harder it is to remove and the more likely it is to leave a residue.

The right adhesive for your labels

• Ultra-peel adhesives are the weakest and are useful for marking up high value goods where the label must be very easily removed for example book covers, glass and fine chinaware.  The adhesion strength is low though and if used incorrectly they will fall off.

• Freezer adhesives are useful for products that are stored at cold temperatures as conventional permanent adhesives become ineffective below -10 degrees C, and freezers often drop to below -30 degrees C

• Marine adhesives can withstand protracted submersion under water and are principally used for chemical labelling

• Security adhesives have various properties that indicate tampering of the label.  We have a special security label product called Label lock such tamper evident security label applications.

Properties

• cohesive strength • Flexibility • High elastic modulus to resist stress at the bond line• Viscosity how thick the adhesive is and the magnitude of

internal friction• Softening Point to determine when an adhesive will begin

to flow

Major types of adhesives for labels

There are thousands of adhesives they are divided into three major types• Thermoplastic• Thermosetting• Rubber-resin blends

ThermoplasticAdhesives

• Thermoplastic adhesives are especially useful because they can be used in a dry form and are already fully polymerized as received. The bonding process basically involves softening or melting the polymer while in contact with the adherents.

Thermosetting adhesives

• Thermosetting adhesives are essentially infusible, insoluble and show good flow resistance.   They are used for heavy loads and severe conditions such as heat, cold, radiation.

Rubber-resin adhesives

• They have relatively low shear strength and suffer from cold flow and are therefore used for unstressed joints. They are useful for flexible bonds with plastics and rubbers

Summary

Adhesives are used for many different things including making many different labels. Adhesives are used to join materials by gluing. Different types of adhesives are used for different materials and different conditions because the most suitable adhesive will be needed to join the material better. For more information visit: http://www.labelservice.co.uk/