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Manufacturers of adhesives and sealants face an increasingly complicated world, where innovation is essential to survival and ever-expanding regulations threaten their profitability (and sanity!).

From the construction of King Tut’s tomb during the time of the pharaohs, to ensuring the airtight bonding of planks while shipbuilding by the Romans, adhesives have served numerous applications -and made their mark on history.

The average person comes into contact with solvents - toxic substances that dissolve other substances - thousands of times each day without even thinking about them.

Compliance in a chemical environment not only requires selecting the right personal protective equipment (PPE) for a variety of chemicals, but also must ensure that workers wear the equipment.

Silane-modified organic polymers have been around for more than 40 years, and have proliferated in the coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers (CASE) industry over the past 20 years.

Automakers' search for lighter materials and more fuel-efficient vehicles is a well-covered topic. But there are more layers to the story than the headlines suggest.

The global adhesive films market was valued at $9.7 billion in 2013 and is expected to reach $14.45 billion by 2020, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6% during the forecast period, according to Transparency Market Research's "Adhesive Films Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014-2020."

Polyolefin polymers have been an important part of daily life for variety of applications since the reported lab-scale process by Carothers in the 1930s1 and commercial process introduction by ICI in the 1940s.

Solvents have traditionally been derived from petroleum. These petroleum-based solvents are now being replaced by bio-based solvents, derived from renewable feedstocks such as corn, soybeans and orange peels.

Meter/mix systems vary immensely from application to application. Adhesive or sealant resin formulations can vary as well—by chemistry, viscosity, filler content, handling time, and moisture sensitivity, as well as other critical performance factors engineered by the material supplier.