Epoxu
Epoxu
Epoxu
Epoxy Adhesives
Chunfu Chen, Bin Li, Masao Kanari and Daoqiang Lu
Abstract
Epoxy adhesives are primarily composed of epoxy resin and curing agent.
Epoxy adhesives are supplied in both one-component package and two-com-
ponent package depending on curing agent used and curing method applied.
Two-component epoxy adhesives are prepared by packing epoxy composition and
curing agent composition separately. They cure soon after mixing the two com-
ponents together. Almost all room temperature cure epoxy adhesives are supplied
in two-component package. One-component epoxy adhesives are prepared and
supplied by mixing all formulated components in advance including epoxy resin
and curing agent. One-component epoxy adhesives usually need cure at elevated
temperature and store at low temperature in a refrigerator or even freezer.
Epoxy adhesives have been widely used as typical reactive adhesives for various
applications ranging from general industry, construction, electronics assembly,
automobile production to aerospace market. Typical room temperature cure
epoxy adhesives, thermal cure epoxy adhesives and UV cure epoxy adhesives are
introduced in detail.
1. Introduction
Epoxy adhesive was first invented in 1936 by Dr. Pierre Castan for dental appli-
cation via curing bisphenol A epoxy resin with phthalic anhydride. Commercial
supply of epoxy adhesives was started in late 1940s in Europe and USA. Various
epoxy adhesives have been developed and commercialized since then and widely
used as typical reactive adhesives for various structural bonding applications
ranging from general industry, construction, electronics assembly, automobile
production to aerospace market [1–11]. Their typical application area and examples
as well as their supply type, curing method are summarized in Table 1. Major global
suppliers for epoxy adhesives are Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, H.B. Fuller Company,
3M, Huntsman Corporation, Sika Corporation, Arkema Corporation, Cemendine
Co., Ltd., Three-Bond Co., ltd., Huitian Adhesive, etc.
Epoxy adhesives show good adhesion on various substrates and are suitable to
bond metals, glass, concrete, ceramics, wood and many plastics. Curing shrinkage
is very low. Cured epoxy resin possesses strong and rigid cross-linked chemical
structure suitable for structural bonding applications. By combination of various
epoxy resins and different curing agents, a number of epoxy adhesives have been
commercialized for different applications. On the other hand, room temperature
and thermal cure epoxy adhesives need relatively long cure time. Most cured
epoxy adhesives are very rigid and are not suitable for bonding flexible substrates.
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Adhesives and Adhesive Joints in Industry Applications
Table 1.
Typical applications of epoxy adhesives.
In selection and use of epoxy adhesives, cautions need to be paid on their pot
life, cure condition, cure method, physical properties of un-cure and cured resin as
well as adhesion performance.
Epoxy adhesives are primarily composed of epoxy resin and curing agent. Filler,
toughener, plasticizer and other additives such as silane coupling agent, deformer
and colorant, etc., can be formulated as needed. Common compositions and their
main role of epoxy adhesives are illustrated in Table 2.
Epoxy resins are mainly synthesized from reaction of active hydrogen in phe-
nols, alcohols, amines and acids with epichorohydrin, abbreviated normally as ECH
at certain well controlled conditions. Epoxy resin can be also prepared by oxidation
of olefin with peroxide as in the case of preparation of cycloaliphatic epoxy resins.
Main commercial epoxy resins, their preparation and key features are shown in
Table 3. Bisphenol A diglycidyl ether, often called as bisphenol A type epoxy resin,
is the first commercialized and still most widely used epoxy resin. Synthesis of
DGEBA is illustrated in Figure 1 [12]. In volume base, it is estimated that over 75%
of epoxy resin used in industry is this type. Figure 2 illustrates chemical structure
and key features of various functional groups for bisphenol A diglycidyl ether [13],
the most common epoxy resin used in epoxy adhesives.
Epoxide group is chemically very active. Epoxy resin can react with active
hydrogen almost equivalently via polyaddition mechanism with polyamines,
mercaptan compounds, phenols and anhydrates to become cross-linked strong
thermoset polymers. Epoxy resin can also polymerize homogeneously via anionic
polymerization mechanism by initiating of Lewis bases such as tertiary amines
or imidazole compounds. It can also polymerize via cationic polymerization
mechanism via initiating of Lewis acid such as Boron trifluoride amine com-
plex or strong acid such as onium salts, iodonium salts. Table 4 lists typical
curing agent, initiator used in epoxy adhesives. By combination of suitable
epoxy resin with curing agent, epoxy adhesive is designed for various substrate
bonding in different applications. It is supplied in both two-component and
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Epoxy Adhesives
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Table 2.
Epoxy adhesive compositions.
Table 3.
Commercial epoxy resins.
Figure 1.
Synthesis of DGEBA (diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A).
Figure 2.
Chemical structure and key features of DGEBA.
one-component package depending on the curing agent and curing method used.
Two-component epoxy adhesive is prepared by packing epoxy composition and
curing agent composition separately before use. It will cure soon after mixing based
on designed mixing ratio. Almost all room temperature cure epoxy adhesives
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Adhesives and Adhesive Joints in Industry Applications
Table 4.
Epoxy curing agents.
Room temperature cure epoxy adhesives are normally prepared and supplied in
two-component package with epoxy resin component parked in one resin part and
curing agent packed as the other hardener part. By mixing these two parts together,
epoxy resin will react with curing agent quickly at room temperature conditions to
become cross-linked strong thermoset structure that can bond adhesion substrates
tightly. By use of different type of curing agents, pot life and cure time can be
designed as needed.
Mercaptan compounds are usually selected as curing agent for fast room
temperature curable epoxy adhesive because its reaction with epoxy resin is
very fast in the existence of small amount of basic chemicals such as tertiary
amine or imidazole as accelerator. As shown in Figure 3, epoxy resin reacts
with mercaptan group equivalently via polyaddition reaction mechanism [14].
Fixture time can be <30 minutes or even 15 minutes at room temperature. Full
cure time will need 24 hours. Precautions need to be paid on its very short
work life, <10 minutes or even 5 minutes. Commercial fast cure epoxy adhesives
supplied by Henkel AG & Co. KGaA and their typical properties are illustrated
in Table 5 [15].
Figure 3.
Polyaddition reaction of epoxy resin with mercaptan.
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Table 5.
Fast room temperature cure epoxy adhesives.
Figure 4.
Polyaddition reaction between epoxy resin and amine.
Table 6.
Room temperature cure epoxy adhesives.
Aliphatic polyamines are most commonly used curing agents in epoxy resin
technology. A number of modified polyamine type curing agents with adjustment
on curability, handling or other physical properties for easy use have been com-
mercialized in the market by curing agent suppliers. As shown in Figure 4, active
hydrogen of primary and secondary amine reacts equivalently with epoxide via
polyaddition mechanism [16]. Fixture time and work life can be adjusted by com-
bination with suitable curing agent. Table 6 shows commercial room temperature
epoxy adhesives supplied by Henkel AG & Co. KGaA and their properties [17].
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Thermal cure epoxy adhesives are prepared and supplied in both one-
component and two-component packages depending mainly on curing agent type
used. Compared to room temperature cure type, thermal cure two-component
epoxy adhesives usually have higher glass transition temperature that is suitable
for high temperature resistance applications. One-component epoxy adhesives do
not need pre-mixing in use and thus can be handled much easily. Many new one-
component epoxy adhesives have been commercialized and become more and more
important in recent years.
One-component epoxy adhesives do not require pre-mix before use since all
components have been mixed together and there is no concern on insufficient mix-
ing problem as often occurred in two-component use. Pot life of one-component
epoxy adhesives is usually long and one-component adhesives are thus suitable for
automatic dispensing systems. Compared to two-component type, one-component
epoxy adhesives can be handled much easily. On the other hand, one-component
epoxy adhesives usually need cure at higher temperature because of long enough
room temperature stability needed for adhesive preparation and storage. Most
one-component epoxy adhesives require storage condition at lower temperatures
in a refrigerator or even freezer.
Recently one-component thermal cure epoxy adhesives have become more
and more important especially in electronics assembly and automotive produc-
tion where high production efficiency is required. With selection of suitable latent
curing agents, a number of one-component epoxy adhesives have been developed
and commercialized by epoxy adhesive suppliers for various applications. Typical
commercial latent curing agents are summarized in Table 7.
Figure 5.
Chemical structure of IPDA and DDM.
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Table 7.
Typical commercial latent curing agents.
Figure 6.
Chemical structure of DICY.
Ultra-violet light (UV) curable epoxy adhesives can be cured quickly and have
been very successfully used in several new electronics assembly and general bonding
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Epoxy resin
Curing agent
Polymerization
Key features
Table 8.
Comparison of UV acrylate, cationic epoxy and hybrid epoxy adhesives.
applications such as image sensor module assembly, display panel and module
assembly where fast production speed and high adhesion performance are required.
Various UV cationic epoxy adhesive and UV acrylate hybrid thermal cure epoxy
adhesives have been commercialized in recent years. As compared in Table 8, UV
cure epoxy adhesives have no oxygen inhibition issue, low curing shrinkage and
show better adhesion with compared to common UV acrylate adhesives.
UV cationic epoxy adhesives are primarily composed of epoxy resin and cationic
photo-initiator [29–31]. Cycloaliphatic type epoxy resins are usually selected for UV
cationic epoxy adhesives because of faster cationic polymerization rate than that
of normal bisphenol A diglycidyl ether type epoxy resin. As illustrated in Figure 7
[32], cationic photoinitiator formulated in UV epoxy adhesives absorbs UV energy to
generate strong acid that will react with epoxy to produce cationic which can initi-
ate homo-polymerization of epoxy resin. Compared to common acrylate based UV
adhesives, UV cationic epoxy adhesives have lower cure shrinkage because of epoxy
structure and have no surface cure issue resulted from oxygen inhibition to free radical
polymerization since they cure via cationic polymerization. On the other hand, UV
cationic epoxy adhesives are not suitable for bonding basic substrates which terminate
cationic polymerization. UV cationic epoxy adhesives will need some longer cure time.
In real use, a post thermal cure of UV cationic epoxy adhesives after the UV radiation
is commonly used for full cure to assure satisfactory adhesion performance.
UV cationic epoxy adhesives have been commercialized and used in optical parts
bonding, camera module sensor packaging and OLED panel assembly applications
[33–37]. The authors have found that adhesion reliability performance of UV cat-
ionic epoxy adhesives can be much improved by combination use of cationic photo
initiator with thermal cationic initiator [38].
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Figure 7.
UV cationic polymerization of epoxy adhesives.
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Adhesives and Adhesive Joints in Industry Applications
6. Summary
Epoxy adhesives show very good adhesion to various substrates and are the most
important structural adhesives. Epoxy adhesives can be cured at room temperature
condition, at elevated temperature condition or via UV light radiation mainly
depending on curing agent type formulated. Lots of epoxy adhesives, either sup-
plied in one-component or two-component package, have been commercialized and
widely used for bonding metals, concrete, glass, ceramics, concrete, many plastics,
wood, etc. in various industrial production and applications.
Author details
© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
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