Page 10 - Handbook of Adhesion Promoters

1.2 History 3

Just before the second world war, polyurethanes were invented by Otto Bayer in
1930 which also opened the door to many applications depending on adhesion.
th
In the early days of production of adhesives in the 20 century, little scientific stud-
ies were done regarding the reasons for adhesion or its lack but it became obvious in the
th
1940 that the further development of composites containing glass fibers cannot proceed
if problems of adhesion between glass fibers and polymer matrix would not be addressed. 2
Dow Corning, producer of glass fiber, had vital interest in this field. The first application
of the low molecular compounds for enhancement of adhesion was patented for Dow
Corning by Joseph Keil in November 1954 when Edwin Plueddemann was still working
in Westvaco Chlorine Product Corporation. The proposed adhesion primer was based on
titanate. In 1957, Plueddemann moved to Dow Corning and begun his work resulting with
a large body of knowledge which we have today on synthesis, compounding, and applica-
tion of silane products which are extensively used today. His work also resulted in over
2
100 patents for Dow Corning and fundamental monograph which has been republished in
extenso by Springer in a soft cover in 2013, suggesting that there is still interest in the
book and that the findings are still relevant.
Silane-based adhesion promoters still dominate the field of adhesion promotion but
as Chapter 7 will show materials which belong to more than 30 categories of chemical are
now involved in the adhesion promotion of many manufactured goods and the field has
grown to importance in polymer processing technology worthy of thorough review in the
context of new developments and applications.
REFERENCES
1 Brown, R G, US2612463, DuPont, Sep. 30, 1952.
2 Plueddemann, E P, Silane Coupling Agents, Springer, New York, 1991.