Curing and Rheological Properties of UV-Curable Adhesive Containing Glass Bubble Microspheres

Abstract

Glass bubble microspheres (GBMs) were introduced to UV curable laminating adhesive. The curing and rheological behaviors were investigated by photo-DSC(Differential scanning calorimeter), rheometer and FTIR-ATR(Attenuated total reflectance). Photo-DSC and rheometer data analyses showed that polymerization reactivity, ultimate percentage conversion, and modulus for formulations containing optimum level of GBMs were higher than the corresponding values for the formulation without GBMs. FTIR-ATR spectroscopy data showed that addition of GBMs significantly improved the through cure probably due to ball bearing effect and high UV transparency of spherical fillers. The present results imply that GBMs can be applied to improve the chemo-rheological properties of thick pigmented UV curable adhesive.