The Bonding Mechanism of Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives

The bonding of pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) involves applying light pressure to the PSA (i.e pressing a tape to a substrate), which causes it to deform and conform to the substrate’s surface roughness, a process termed wetting. According to Dahlquist’s criterion ¹, a PSA must exhibit a storage modulus (G’) below 0.1 MPa at 1/s to conform adequately to most surfaces. This is the most important criterion in designing PSAs, as sufficient adhesion can only be achieved with sufficient bonding.

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