Water-Based Nitrile Lattex Adhesives

Manufacturer: We are in the process of developing a water-based adhesive based on Nitrile latex. Please let us know the potential areas of application and what one needs to consider in order to make this project a success. Thank you in advance.



John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant): While Nitrile latex has good resistance to non-polar oils, its polar nature gives good affinity to polar substrate such as PVC. You should therefore look into the market of PVC floor tiles where Nitrile based adhesive should be the preferred material. It could also be used for paper, boards, fabrics, wood and metal foils.

However, unlike other latices such as natural rubber and polychloroprene, Nitrile latex has low inherent tack (i.e. dry tack). Therefore the addition of a suitable tackifier is recommended. Examples of such tackifier are coumarone indene resins, hydrogenated esters and terpene resins.

However, too much tackiness obtained by the addition of the tackifiers could lead to a drop in the cohesion strength and toughness of the dry adhesive. Hence a balance should be reached between the two  extremes.

You could also look into the addition of reinforcing agents such as phenolics, terpene-phenolics resins.