Rheological characterization of waterborne tile adhesives

Abstract

How to ensure that a thick adhesive is easy to apply and holds up when bonding the substrates? What does it take for a correct adhesive application? The answer lies in optimizing rheological properties of systems to achieve the thickness and workability together with control of sag, hold up and creep of the wet adhesive. Control of its application is essential to ensure its final mechanical and adhesion properties. The applicability of waterborne adhesives using a manual tool is very dependent on the ability of the adhesive to flow under stress. Thus, the rheological approach is relevant to physically describe the flow mode of these soft solid viscoelastic materials that need to be applied with a high, regular and homogeneous thickness on different substrates. The objective is to identify the rheological parameters that best describe the applicability of these thick adhesives. We will compare various acrylic thickeners to illustrate these parameters. These characterizations will be carried out in formulations comprising the essential ingredients to target the mechanical resistance of these thick adhesives, aiming at achieving correlations between viscoelastic behavior and application properties.

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