Pressure-sensitive adhesives production in a continuous pulsed sieve-plate column reactor

• Grant number: 09/10647-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2009
• End date: January 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Chemical Engineering - Chemical Process Industries
• Principal Investigator: Reinaldo Giudici
• Grantee: Wilson Hideki Hirota
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Highly competitive and with applications in different fields of industries including the adhesive tapes and medical segments, the pressure-sensitive adhesives always require the development of new formulations that are able to answer the main pre-conditions that guide the industry that can be translated into: competitive prices, high stability low toxicity, thermal resistance, resistance to moisture, and physical and mechanical properties well defined.Although a number of formulations in emulsion have been developed, currently the production of this kind of adhesives is still performed in continuous stirred tanks reactors operated in batch or semi-batch mode that requires long residence times, can be present significant batch-to-batch variations in the product quality, or even result in a final product with undesirable mechanical properties.Thus, in order to propose technical and economically feasible alternatives to minimize these variability and, simultaneously, to obtain a final product with well defined properties, this project aims to analyze the feasibility of using a continuous pulsed sieve-plate column reactor for the synthesis of acrylic resins in emulsion to produce pressure sensitive adhesives and paints. It is expected to reach a stable formulation with mechanical properties suitable for each desired application.