This has been a good year for the adhesives and sealants industry, as some positive economic trends are taking shape—and some long-unsettled regulatory oversight may be straightened out.

This issue of Adhesives & Sealants Industry magazine brings the ASI Top 25, our exclusive ranking of the top 25 worldwide manufacturers of adhesives and sealants.

Stringent fuel efficiency norms are compelling automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to reduce the weight of their vehicles, thus spurring the use of lightweight materials such as plastics, composites, and aluminum.

JEC Composites recently gave its JEC 2015 Jury Prize to Hyundai and chassis designer Axon Automotive (part of Far-UK Ltd.) for the Intrado hydrogen-powered crossover car.

Adhesives, sealants, and their hybrids are crucial for many industries in which weight and performance must be balanced and tradeoffs limited, such as automotive, aerospace, and marine.

Packaging and transporting of flammable and hazardous chemicals continues to be a concern in the adhesives and sealants industry. This is commonly known as transportation of dangerous goods (TDG).

Adhesives are widely used in the electronics industry for bonding surface mount components, wire tacking, conformal coatings and encapsulating components.

"The release liner industry is innovating," said Corey Reardon, president and CEO of AWA Alexander Watson Associates, as he opened the annual AWA Global Release Liner Conference and Exhibition.