Comparative studies of solvent bonding and adhesive bonding for fabrication of transparent polymers
S. Ahmed (University of Calcutta)
D. Chakrabarty (University of Calcutta)
S. Bhowmik (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering, Amrita University)
S. Mukherjee (TU Delft - Applied Sciences, Facilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technologies)
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Abstract
This investigation highlights rationale of solvent bonding and adhesive bonding for fabrication of a transparent polymer such as polycarbonate with a high-throughput process. Studies under ultra violet spectra and visible spectra reveal that in comparison with adhesive bonding of a polymer, solvent diffusion bonding is more transparent. Polycarbonate is hydrophilic in nature resulting in a low contact angle of water as well as the presence of polar functional groups on the polymer surface. It is observed that a lap shear tensile strength of a solvent bonding polymer is significantly higher than that of an acrylic adhesive bonded polycarbonate, and fabrication of polycarbonate by solvent bonding merely takes few seconds. Solvent bonding of a polymer results in a cohesive failure from polymer as analyzed under the scanning electron microscopy, this is why solvent bonding shows a significantly higher bond strength.