Chemical Composition of Adhesives and Sealants over Time

3 Chemical Composition of Adhesives and Sealants Over Time 

Today all formulated adhesives and sealants combined represent a global tonnage of 8.5 Mio mto (dry, annually), and are projected to grow to 10.2 Mio mto by 2010. These figures do not include typical binders for paper manufacture and for use in the woodworking industry. From this tonnage a mere 15.5% (2006), respectively 15.0% (2010), represent adhesives and sealants based on natural origin with or without additional chemical modification. 

With the volume ratio of adhesives and sealants remaining fairly constant over time in the 80-85 15-20% range the amount of crude-oil-based 

However, this represents just 0.006% of all oil consumed per annum even if this amount has been doubled by factoring in the material and energy needs for processing the base ingredients for adhesives and sealants, and also taking into account the difference between dry and wet adhesives as representing on average a factor of 3. 

Considering a global plastic production of 245 Mio mto (2006), petrochemical-based adhesives and sealants represent just 3% of this. Dry adhesive in this sense is the solid portion of an adhesive governing its overall performance properties, whereas wet adhesives describe the ready-to-use product in its average proportion of solid (34%) and liquid (66%) ingredients. The liquid phase commonly and increasingly is water, but 0.71 Mio dry mto (2006), respectively 0.78 Mio dry mto (2010), remain solvent- and thus crude-oil-based, a sizable factor that has to be regarded as well. 

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