There are three primary types of adhesives used in the manufacturing of packaging tapes, each have their own advantages that are briefly discussed in this week’s post.
Types of packaging tape adhesives
- Natural rubber
- Synthetic rubber
- Acrylic
Customers are able to purchase six roll packs and 36 roll cartons of high quality packaging tapes made with all three different types of adhesives through the Adaptalift Store.
Natural Rubber Packaging Tape
On its own natural rubber possess no tack or adhesion properties, it must be combined with a chemical compound to formulate an adhesive and increase its tackiness (the stickiness of the surface for adhesion).
Natural rubber adhesives feature long polymer chains that allow natural rubber tapes to be flexible at low temperatures whilst being extremely strong.
Advantages
- Fast Bonding: Aggressive adhesion reduces application time, excessive rubdown of tape is unnecessary. Cartons never need to be resealed unless they’re opened.
- Adheres to Difficult Cartons: Natural rubber has a broad adhesive profile offering great flexibility to seal a wide variety of cartons and packages including recycled paper content, ink covered, rough or ultra-smooth surfaces.
- Best for Cold Temperatures: Will stick at freezing temperatures, best used to secure cold storage warehouse boxes and winter shipments.
- High Levels of Adhesion: Provides added strength and security for the sealing of over-stuffed cartons due to strong bonding properties.
- Moisture Resistant: Can tolerate humid and damp packaging conditions with minimal deterioration.
- Firm Unwind: Firm unwind makes natural rubber adhesives ideal for manual applications such as use in tape guns.
- Excellent Printability: Excellent tape base for the creation of printed packaging tapes.
Synthetic Rubber Packaging Tape
Synthetic packaging tapes are often referred to as Hot Melt tapes comprise two hard end segments and a rubbery middle segment.
With the hard end (styrene) ends determining the internal strength of the rubber, whilst the rubber middle determines the adhesiveness.
Similar to natural rubber the synthetic rubber adhesive alone does not possess any adhesive properties and must be mixed with a chemical compound to create hot melt packing tape.
Advantages
- Superior Adhesive Performance: The superior adhesive power of hot melt packaging tapes allows more cartons to be sealed in less time speeding up packaging processes.
- Packaging Machine Compatibility: The consistent release tension of hot melt packing tapes make it the ideal tape for use in electric carton sealing machines.
- Increased Versatility: Whilst primarily manufactured for the sealing of cartons and packages synthetic rubber tapes broad adhesion properties make it the ideal tape for a wide variety of other paper and non-paper applications.
- Excellent Printability: Excellent tape base for the creation of printed packaging tapes.
Acrylic Packaging Tape
Acrylic packaging tapes are industrially manufactured and be customised based on the formulation of ingredients used to create tape with a specific level of tackiness and adhesion.
Unlike natural and synthetic rubber tapes they are tacky by nature and have long cross linked polymer chains that increase their performance.
Advantages
- Aging Resistant: Offer long-term resistance to aging from exposure to UV light, air or heat, tape will not discolour during extended storage.
- Greater Clarity: Tape will not discolour over time making it ideal for laminating over labels for protection so the label can still be read after a long-time.
- Consistent Release Tension: Reliable release tape for less frequent tension adjustments on automatic carton sealing machines. Tape is also more comfortable for manual and low noise applications.
- Maintains Colour: Ideal for the manufacture of coloured tapes.
- Excellent Printability: Excellent tape base for the creation of printed packaging tapes.
Adaptalift Store offers a full range of packing tapes and other packing accessories at affordable rates.
For assistance in finding the right tape for your application or to place a bulk order contact a member of our team on 13 22 54.