Gluing plastics is a major sector in Ireland. There are many hundreds of industrial applications with dozens of plastics. These plastics are used extensively throughout the manufacturing sector, due to their low cost and durability. However, for decades they have been the bain of the manufacturing engineers life……..they had been difficult to bond because their surface properties repel most adhesives. Other plastics such as TPO’s (Thermoplastic Polyolefin) don’t fare any better as they were exceedingly difficult to bond to in account of their non-polar, non-porous and basically inert surfaces.

Traditionally, difficult to bond to plastics required sometimes often laborious pre-treatments including deep abrading, acid etching or expensive corona treatments.

Gluing Polypropylene with Scigrip PPX5

Scigrip broke the mould with their PPX5 structural adhesive. It is a two-part acrylic-based plastic bonder designed for application at a 10:1 adhesive/activator mix ratio by volume, with working time of between 2 to 4 minutes, and fixture time of about 90 minutes. The off-white mixed adhesive is resistant to most automotive and industrial solvents, including ethylene glycol and various hydraulic fluids. Scigrip PPX5 delivers superior bonding properties without the use of solvents or volatile compounds, while requiring minimal surface preparation. In addition, it produces a bond with excellent resistance to water and humid environments !

Scigrip PPX5 can be used to bond dissimilar plastic substrates (polypropylene, polyethylene, polycarbonate, and PMMA); metals (carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminum); or fibre-reinforced plastics with a minimum of surface preparation to reduce labour costs and production cycle times.

Scigrip PPX5 50 ml

In a recent enquiry, a customer in the sign sector, wanted to glue polypropylene spacers to the back of an illuminated polypropylene sign. The one and only choice was Scigrip PPX5!

Scigrip PPX5 is non-flammable, room temperature curing, solvent free and very easy to dispense. Adhesion properties includes a shear strength of 500 to 870 psi (for thermoplastics); and 500 to 940 psi (for polyethylene to metals), measured at 24°C.

We stock Scigrip PPX5 in very convenient 50ml cartridges with the accompanying COAX-50-10:1 static mixers, CM5 gun application guns and static mixer tips where required.