Hot Melts Hold Fast

With this array of hot melts, the impact of the individual adhesive components was investigated in combination with a siliconized liner. (The high-styrene content SIS (number 4 above) did not melt so it could not be tested.)

The release coating is a 70:30 combination of two cold-cure silicones and a two percent photoinitiator. Both are silicone acrylates that cure via a free-radical mechanism under UV light. The 70 percent is an easy release silicone, the other an anchoring silicone. The free-radical curing mechanism is robust and unaffected by impurities in the liner material, but nitrogen inerting during UV exposure is needed to minimize unwanted oxygen interactions with the silicone. The silicone was coated at approximately 0.9 g/m² and UV-cured in three different ways: