When chemicals react with each other, they often give out heat during the reaction. This is known as an exotherm, and it is something that is often witnessed when mixing adhesives. That is mixing resin and hardener systems such as two-part epoxy adhesives. Or sometimes, when curing too much adhesive in one go. Such as placing a bulk quantity of heat cure epoxy in the oven.
My first experience of an exothermic reaction was quite a shock to the system! As a youngster earning my stripes in the QC lab, I was a bit over enthusiastic with a clean-up operation. I was curing off old adhesive samples in the fume cabinet. Anaerobic adhesives remain liquid unless in a tightly fitting joint between metal parts. But not with me around… Add cumene hydroperoxide. Nope, not much is happening. Add quite a bit more. Get bored. Wander off. 10 minutes later, wonder what that crackling noise is…. Uh oh!!!! The container was melting, and a bubbling sticky fuming mess like a cow pat is spewing all over the fume cupboard.
After a good telling off from Health and Safety, a stint doing job secondment in production, and learning the ropes in R&D, it became apparent that not only I was a liability, but that I had added far too much rocket fuel to my concoction.
Around that time in QC, I also became familiar with an exotherm test that was conducted on two-part epoxy adhesives (but only on the slow curing grades). 100ml of adhesive is thoroughly mixed, thermocouple wires are inserted, and then a temperature logger measures the time vs. temperature so you can check a product’s exotherm. Single-part epoxies require heat to cure the adhesive, but they can still become exothermic. If you cure too much in one go, it can overheat, bubble, and char and give an undesirable finish.
Other faster curing products, such as certain MMA structural acrylic adhesives offer quite spectacular exothermic reactions – dispense a whole cartridge into a cup and put it in the fume cupboard, and watch an impressive mushroom bubble up and shrink back down into the cup.
Even if an exotherm isn’t as dramatic as these examples, it could still be sufficient to damage substrate materials, entrap air bubbles, shrink excessively, affect the aesthetic appearance of parts, or damage sensitive electronic components.
Of course, a smouldering dung heap mess or an expanding mushroom are not on the wish list for engineers looking to use adhesives. So there are some top tips for minimising exotherm:
If safe to do so, quickly move the container or part into a fume cupboard, under an extractor, or outdoors to an open space. Avoid breathing the fumes. Use oven gloves for handling hot containers.
Please contact our technical team for further assistance.
