A new class of one hundred percent-reactive monomeric materials is enabling a wide variety of high-performance products that can be cured rapidly at low temperatures, reducing the need for solvents, heat or ultraviolet light. This new technology is enabling numerous product and processing improvements in adhesives, paints and coatings, composites, printing, and other industries.
Chemists have long realized that electron-deficient disubstituted alkenes, with their ability to polymerize anionically, held great promise in adhesives, coatings and other polymer applications. However, the ability to reliably produce these highly reactive monomers, stabilize them and deliver them on an industrial scale is a very recent development. Ongoing refinements to this new technology have allowed the development of a family of methylene malonate monomers with a variety of substituents on the ester side groups. These various building blocks give rise to polymers exhibiting glass transition temperatures ranging from -50 °C to 190 °C, with corresponding mechanical properties and adjustable cure characteristics. Such polymers can be made to adhere to steel, tin-plated steel, aluminum, glass and wood, as well as a variety of plastics such as polycarbonate, ABS, styrenic plastics, sheet molding compounds and acrylic plastics.