Materials Science

High-performance prepolymer technology for hot melt adhesives

Specialty chemicals company LANXESS will be attending the In-Adhesives Symposium in Munich this year with an expert presentation. Ronald M. Emanuel, Jr., Senior R&D Scientist, Global Research and Development Adhesives, at LANXESS’s Urethane Systems business unit, will speak about “Unique High Performance Low Monomer Urethane Prepolymers for Hot Melt Adhesives” on February 26, 2019.

At the event, which deals with innovations, the latest developments and current trends in the field of adhesives and their applications in a wide variety of industrial sectors, solutions, developments and results from the focal areas “Automotive and Aviation”, “Lightweight”, “Electronics” and “Medicine” will be presented.

LANXESS is an innovation leader in the development of low free (LF) isocyanate technology, which is marketed under the brand name Adiprene LF. Based on this technology, LANXESS Urethane Systems has developed unique prepolymers with less than 0.10 percent free MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate) and other isocyanates that are used for hot melt adhesives in the automotive, construction and electronics industries. This low monomer technology offers outstanding technical performance, exceptional processability and productivity, as well as environmental, health and safety benefits.

“The focus of our development work is to broaden the range of prepolymers with very low free isocyanate content – a key lever to improved industrial hygiene and worker safety,” explains Emanuel. Low monomer urethane prepolymers are particularly suited to address increasingly strict regulations and to manufacture final products with lower hazard classifications. In addition, they avoid any toxic classification.

LANXESS’s low monomer technology can be tailored to customer needs in terms of NCO content, viscosity and performance properties. The prepolymers are available for all isocyanate and polyol chemicals, including special isocyanates such as IPDI (isophorone diisocyanate), HDI (hexamethylene diisocyanate) and pPDI (p-phenylene diisocyanate). The latter offers excellent solvent resistance and exceptional high temperature performance. It also includes a number of polyols such as polyethers, polyesters, polycaprolactones and polycarbonates.