Volatile Solvent Free Styrenic Block Copolymer Based Pressure Sensitive Adhesive using Organic Eutectic Liquid

Styrenic block copolymer based pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) are commonly used from daily life to industry. Coupled with increasing environmental issues, there are tremendous demands for environment-friendly PSA development. In this poster presentation, a non-volatile and non-toxic organic eutectic liquid (EL) was developed as a substitute of both volatile organic diluent and toxic tackifier, which are conventional components of PSA. Substituting the EL for diluent and tackifier not only eliminates many disadvantages of conventional PSA such as use of toxic and volatile components but also simplifies the manufacturing process by excluding solution casting and solvent recovery steps. Moreover, upon incorporating EL into the poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene) block copolymer, increase in storage modulus at low temperature (high frequency) and decrease in glass transition of styrene end block at relatively high temperature (low frequency) were resulted. These facts indicate the EL helped the PSA to be especially suitable for conditions bearing high shear rates.