 Nadine Blaesing Dymax Corp. Market Segment Manager Visit Website |
Nadine Blaesing is the market segment manager, Europe, for Dymax. She has more than 12 years of experience selling adhesives and providing technical assistance to the medical device market. Although she began her career as an applications engineer in Europe, and later in the United States, Blaesing eventually transitioned into marketing while keeping her focus on the medical device industry. Dymax specializes in the manufacture of light-curable adhesives, cyanoacrylates, epoxies, light-emitting curing equipment, and dispensing systems.
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Adhesives and Epoxies Q&A
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We use glass capillary coated with polyamide and insert the glass capillary into a fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) tube. What is the best adhesive that would hold both the capillary and the FEP tube?Answered January 10th, 2011 by Expert:In general, it is very difficult to adhere materials to FEP. It has very similar properties to Teflon (PTFE), which is known for its antisticking surface. Due to the design of your part, you may achieve sufficient bond strength, especially if the capillary is inserted deep into the FEP tube and the adhesive can flow deep inside the bond gap. If you prefer a light-curable adhesive, I would start trials with Dymax 1180-M (medical grade) or 3013 (industrial grade).
Before making a final adhesive recommendation, however, a few more aspects need to be considered:
• The length of the bond area.
• The bond-gap size (outer diameter capillary versus inner diameter FEP tube).
• The forces and temperature to which the part will be exposed when in use.
• The medical-grade adhesive needed.
• Optical properties.If you need higher bond strength, there is an option to chemically etch FEP. By using a sodium naphthanate solution, the surface of the FEP can be modified so that most common adhesives can be used. This etch, however, creates a darker layer on the surface, so that the clear properties of the FEP are no longer available.