Bonding of Plastic Parts with Dispersion Adhesives – Film Formation via Diffusion Processes

Bonding of plastic parts poses some challenges e.g. regarding wettability, adhesion or the choice of a suitable adhesive system. Often cost-intensive, chemically setting adhesives such as epoxy resin adhesives are used. In the furniture and paper industries, porous materials such as wood or paper are bonded with dispersion adhesives which are regarded as ecologically friendly and, due to the high water content, are cost-effective. In the context of combining wood and plastic, for example with WPC (Wood-Plastic Composites), hybrid joints of wood/WPC or wood/plastics are becoming more and more important for industrial applications. The investigations in this paper show a possibility to bond non-hygroscopic parts with dispersion adhesives. Through perforation of one bonding partner, the water in the wet adhesive can be removed from the adhesive layer. The process of film formation is analyzed considering diffusion processes, capillary forces and deformation of the particles.