Hot-melt adhesives have surpassed the efficiencies of their predecessors in many ways, which is one of the reasons why they have become so popular today.

In addition to ease of use, and lower processing costs and regulatory requirements, one of the main reasons why a hot melt is the adhesive of choice in many markets is due to its unrivalled versatility.

Hot-melt adhesives can be used to bond a great range of substrates from cardboard, metal, glass, leather and wood to ceramics, plastic, rubber, fabric and foam. The high viscosity of a hot melt makes it suitable for use on both non-porous and porous substrates which would otherwise be more difficult to bond with, say, a solvent-based adhesive.

Thanks to factors such as their excellent water and moisture resistance (they don’t weaken when exposed to humidity), hot-melt adhesives create tamper-resistant seals. Hot melts can therefore be used on hot, cold and wet surfaces and, because they’re thermoplastic, they can be repeatedly heated to melt and cooled to solidify. There’s no one-time usage with a hot melt, which is often the case with other adhesives.

Unlike solvent-based glues, hot melts do not lose their thickness when they solidify. Being 100% solid formulations, hot melts shrink minimally when being cooled which is why they are excellent at filling gaps. In comparison, solvent-based adhesives rely on the extraction of a carrier to set, often resulting in a 50-70% reduction of their applied weight.

Hot melts are favoured by many customers because they can cool down and dry almost instantly (unlike water-based and solvent-based adhesives), providing an ultra-fast method of bonding. This gives manufacturers the option of speeding up their production lines, making the entire process more efficient – perhaps one of the biggest hot melt selling points and why they are commonly used in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) packaging applications. Furthermore, hot melt tanks can easily be turned off and on, or left on standby, without the need to completely clean down or flush the system – another manufacturing win.