New highly flexible adhesives offer speed and strength

Speed and flexibility have always been a trade-off for adhesives. Cyanoacrylates, often referred to as “instant adhesives”, have proven to be some of the fastest and strongest adhesives available; however, they also lend themselves to a rigid, brittle end product.

Henkel has proven there doesn’t have to be a trade-off. The company has developed two instant adhesives — Loctite 4902 and Loctite 4903 — that offer high flexibility and fast fixture speed while maintaining high strength on a majority of substrates. They are the first cyanoacrylate adhesives that offer elongations up to 155 per cent, and at the same time fixture in seconds, bonding to plastics, rubbers, metals and more.

These adhesives are ideal for applications where there are bond lines in the assembly that are highly flexing, as well as those that require sealing capability — for example, catheter assembly, tube-connector bonding, and devices undergoing bending and flexing.

Loctite 4903 facilitates the use of dissimilar and opaque substrates while improving device performance, and offers significant performance enhancements compared to standard cyanoacrylates, including strength in flexing bond lines and resistance to leaks with excellent sealing capability.  

Another bonus: both Loctite 4902 and Loctite 4903 have ISO-10993 certification for use in the medical device industry for the assembly of disposable medical devices. 

Henkel’s Loctite brand is the trusted choice for engineered, high-performance adhesive, sealant and coating solutions. Designed to enable customer innovation, increase reliability and improve manufacturing operations, the Loctite expansive product portfolio offers solutions for the most demanding industry applications.

To request a sample and learn more about the flexible instant adhesives, contact Henkel. 

• Tweet