Community Insight - SpecialChem 4 Adhesives

Become a member for FREE

Adhesives & Sealants Trends Analysis

Our industry experts regularly analyze the evolution of SpecialChem Members preferences and share with you unique aggregated data!
Our ever-growing community and unique position in the market allow us to have exclusive insight on key information our members share with us, such as the performances they seek or the markets they serve.

Below you will find a list of Community Insights.

Focus of the month

The Key to Hybrid Adhesive Properties is in the Balance
June, 2013

While simplicity and elegance are highly desirable in science and manufacturing, in making adhesives we often have to move beyond basic formulations to deliver the necessary performance. Hybrid formulations that combine different polymers are an extreme example of this. Bringing together different backbones in a single adhesive can be complex, but can also help escape compromises that are common with simpler combinations. Having written about a few examples of hybrid formulations, I wanted to know what the biggest challenges Specialchem4Adhesives readers faced with them were.

Past Community Insights

	May, 2013 - Tough Questions Remain for Bio-based Adhesive Raw Materials Why do adhesive formulators select a new raw material? Most likely, they do it because it's cheaper than the old one. Or possibly they choose it because they get newer capabilities. But a unique set of criteria seems to apply when it comes to choosing to formulate with bio-based raw materials. In Click'n'Vote polls in June 2009 and January 2012, Omnexus4Adhesives readers chose environmental credentials as the most important reason for their interest in renewable and bio-based adhesives. Those voters were mainly adhesive users, which makes formulating products with renewable and bio-based raw materials to target them a competitive advantage. As customer preference pulls these materials into adhesives, the April Specialchem4Adhesives CnV poll asked what the biggest challenge in choosing between them was. And when I saw the results, I wondered: Are newer bio-based materials really delivering what they promise yet?

	April, 2013 - Adhesive Producers 'Keep Calm and Carry on' Over Borate Risks Could your adhesive avoid putting off customers if it had an "exploding chest" pictogram, and the words "May damage fertility. May damage the unborn child" on its packaging? Every adhesive manufacturer should consider whether the raw materials it uses present a risk to its customers, and in turn to its own business. But in the EU that concern has become especially great for companies using boric acid and borax raw materials since June 2010. Then, the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) added them to the candidate list of ‘substances of very high concern', meaning that it is possible that some borate chemicals could be removed from the market altogether.

	March, 2013 - Process Improvement Systems Make Adhesive Making Better Sometimes manufacturing can feel like a never-ending panic to get products out of the door, where it's hard to stop and think about exactly what you’re doing. You might feel the bitter blow of an adhesive batch that fails quality control testing, but never fully understand the key causes. But with slow global economic growth today putting many companies under pressure, thinking about how your company can enhance its processes can provide a valuable and ongoing boost to its profitability. This has been the case as long as there has been mass manufacturing, with concepts like statistical process control first emerging in the 1930s. Today there are a wide range of formalised continuous improvement philosophies available to learn.

	February, 2013 - Raw material price-fixing: A fact of adhesive industry life? A year ago, the EU general court finally dismissed appeals from three major chemical companies against multimillion-Euro fines for participating in a chloroprene rubber cartel. The cartel companies held regular meetings from 1993-2002 to agree on market shares and prices, exchange sensitive commercial information and discuss specific clients. But chloroprene rubber-based adhesives are a relatively small part of the overall industry, and there are no other recent equivalent cartels that have been prosecuted. Therefore, it is easy to think that most SpecialChem4Adhesives readers would never have been affected by a cartel.

	January, 2013 - Are There Enough Adhesive Formulation Chemists? There are shortages of employee talent across the world, in countries such as China, the US, UK, Germany. Or, at least, that’s what the media say. But largely they’re reporting statements by organizations that are likely to be biased, like business groups and recruitment organizations. So is it true? Most importantly for SpecialChem4Adhesives readers, is it true in the adhesive industry? And if it is, where would those shortages be most serious?

	December, 2012 - Long-term Adhesive Strength Remains a Sticky Problem Could your company's adhesives be used to make products that will last for decades? In some industries, such as power generation and transportation, long-term durability is a critically important specification. Adhesives producers supplying such industries therefore have to live up to these particular challenges.You might think that the most difficult problems in doing this would be resisting extreme temperatures and harsh environments. But, in response to last month's Click'n'Vote poll, Specialchem4Adhesives readers' votes show a much more fundamental property is still important: making basic adhesion last.

	November, 2012 - Conflictoperation: How Adhesive and Raw Material Producers Get Along The relationship between raw material suppliers and adhesive formulators is a strange mix of conflict and co-operation. Let’s call it conflictoperation. Each is out to maximize their profit margin, but relies on the other. Adhesive makers want ready supply at low prices, while raw materials producers want high capacity utilization and high prices. And the fallout from that clash of interests means one group is often at a disadvantage to the other.

1
2
3
4
5
...
8
Next

.marketing services

Promote your products on Specialchem4Adhesives

.stay connected

About SpecialChem - About SpecialChem4Adhesives - Commercial Acceleration Services - Advertise with us

Contact Us - Forgot your UserID / Password? - Site Map - RSS - Terms and Conditions - specialchem.com

Copyright © 2013 SpecialChem S.A.