One of the biggest market areas for glues and sealants is in Building Construction. There are a number of applications where these products are being used, including:

 

 

 

Today, architectural masterpieces or multi-story dwelling houses are built from lumber which is glued together, and is also a renewable building material. Credit to latest adhesive technology, this is the most sustainable and the safest way to build a house.

 Scandinavia and the USA possess a history of timber buildings and now, the Germans have started building houses by this traditional material. Today every fifth house is constructed from wood, which has made many other materials totally superfluous. Even load-bearing structures are made from wood or, more specifically, wood plus an adhesive, a composite of various layers of timber which are bonded together under pressure. The result is an absolutely steady element of any length and thickness. Curved components can also be produced by laminating wood with a suitable adhesive. A single-component polyurethane adhesive (i.e. PUR) allows for adhesive bonds which are environmentally safe, not dangerous to health and, what's more, invisible. The unique adhsive reacts with the moisture contained in the wood. As an alternative to conventional glue used for this type of function, this new adhesive technology does without solvents or formaldehyde. This gives a great indoor environmental quality together with outstanding comfort of living and a distinctive design. A prominent example is "Chesa Futura" (i.e. house of the future) in St. Moritz. For this extraordinary building, to start with, designer Lord Norman Foster had all load-bearing timber components pre-fabricated from glued timber elements and then assembled onsite.

 

Compressed under foot - can you imagine what carpet, floorboard, linoleum and the like have to bear? Every day, people trip, run, scuffle, trudge and tramp on them. Sometimes in high heels, sometimes with rug-ged boots or other heavy foot-wear. Of course, the adhesive underneath the base surface has to endure these loads as well.

 

"Where you find the ground, spread something good on it", said the Swiss poet and philosopher John Caspar Lavater. True, he probably was not thinking about floor coatings, nor carpeting, PVC coatings and related adhesives. These surfaces are subject to a everlasting load, mainly in public buildings. That said, excellence is not a luxury but of the core. Rubber coatings in airports and railway stations have to withstand loads equivalent to numerous herds of hippos, elephants and rhinos passage. Every day, armies of passengers, pilots, flight attendants and train conductors drag their baggage over them. In addition, floors and adhesives both have to stand up to other demands placed during regular cleaning using heavy machines and revolving brushes. More often than not elastomer covering can be glued using dispersion adhesive which is selected to match the covering type. If the floor is subject to a load, as is customary in railway stations or airports, they are glued with resin adhesives. Finally, temperature variations, solar radiation, moisture or heavy equipment as used for damp cleaning, add on to these strains.

 

Likewise, floors in hospitals are subject to major loads as well. Wheel chairs and meal carts compress floor material and adhesives together. What is more, in the surgery and intensive care units, adhesive and floor coating have to conduct electricity. This as applies to for all rooms where major IT equipment is located. The machines must be grounded to the floor.

 

In residential buildings, carpet, laminate, cork and adhesives are exposed to less harsh conditions. Still furniture castors and ground heating challenge material resistance. And the adhesive certainly has to hold up if junior decides to perform roller-skating on the carpet while mom is out shopping!

 

 

 

 

Walls are like chameleons - whether you want the ambience of the Mediterranean with rich orangey or terracotta tones or the receptivity of modern design with cool colors - wallpaper is the answer. No other accessory can effect the atmosphere of your home like wallpaper; it really shows off the character of the inhabitants. A new phase of life can often begin with a change of wallpaper. And modern wallpaper glue ensures a smooth transition.

 

Wallpapering makes it simple. With a change of wallpaper, you can alter a child’s room into the room of a teen, give your dingy apartment a homey feel, or make your quarrel house into a real family home. Though, the old-fashioned wallpapering techniques are a thing of the past. Thanks to contemporary wallpaper and paste. Modern wallpaper paste still uses methylcellulose and starch - of course, both natural substances and both non-hazardous. Often other resins and materials to help application and increase viscosity were added.

 

The kind of paste depends on the kind of wallpaper used. Modern fashion prefers fleece wall -- which is especially long-lasting and can be dry-stripped -- provided the correct adhesive is used! Fleece wallpaper comes in abundant designs, patterns and surface textures. Many manufacturers offer them with textures that vary from crushed velvet to metallic and lusterless finishes or even sparkling glass beads. Paste for fleece wallpaper can be applied directly to the wall, and the wallpaper can be simply unrolled and directly hung.

 

In this case, the paste should have a high early adhesive intensity, but at the same time it must be stay adjustable for a while. Additionally, for every wallpaper job there is a specialized wallpaper paste. As old walls are extremely absorbent and new walls absorb very little dampness, special products are offered which regulate the quantity of moisture absorbed. There is even paste for frequently papered, rough walls which can be smoothed over in the one step like a wallpaper spatula; then the paper can be applied in the second step.

 

Incredible, what a small methylcellulose and starch can do!