Polyolefins enjoy widespread use in today's world. Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic, and olefinic elastomers, such as natural rubber and styrene-butadiene copolymers, predominate in many key components such as tires. Many applications of polyolefins require good adhesion to other materials — examples include adhesive bonding, lamination, painting, printing, coating, and metallizing. Unfortunately, the surface properties of polyolefins are not conducive to adhesion.

This review discusses a variety of adhesion promoting pretreatment methods (including corona, flame, and low pressure plasma), and priming techniques such as the use of a chlorine donor for olefinic elastomers. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are investigated. It also addresses the analytical techniques used to characterize surfaces, including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), static secondary ion mass spectrometry (SSIMS), and Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). A brief discussion of the theories of adhesion is included. This very highly recommended reference tool contains 403 abstracts from Rapra's Polymer Library database.

From the Introduction: “...Much research has been carried out on pretreatments for plastics where changes in surface chemistry have been determined and in some cases related to adhesion performance. However, few such studies have been carried out with elastomers partly because of the complexity of their formulations. Several compounding ingredients migrate to the surfaces of elastomers making it difficult to differentiate between changes to these additives and changes to the underlying polymer chains...This review explores the joining of polyolefins to a variety of substrates especially by means of adhesive bonding and the coating of polyolefins with printing inks, paints and metals...”

Rapra Review Reports contain a brief overview of the topic, followed by extensive references, with abstracts, from the Rapra database. They serve as condensed, valuable research tools for scientists, technologists, and other researchers working with rubber or plastics materials.

Target Audience: Any reader in industry or academia who is concerned with adhesion and bonding to polyolefins, both in practical situations and in the laboratory.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Principles

Methods Used to Study Surfaces

Pretreatments and Primers for Polyolefin Plastics

Pretreatments and Primers for Polyolefin Elastomers

Discussion

Conclusions

References

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Abstracts from the Polymer Library Database

Subject Index