Characterization of odorous substances in adhesives

Adhesives are omnipresent in today's world. They are indispensable, for example,  in the automotive industry, packaging industry, construction industry, and for medical products such as adhesive tape. Although people are often unaware of it, adhesives are all around us. Adhesives can however have unpleasant odors and put off people from buying certain products. Despite this, adhesive odors have up until now been little researched.

To address this, the Fraunhofer IVV is identifying odorous substances in adhesives. A combination of human-sensory and analytical methods is being used for this. These methods are already established and used in the area of aroma/flavor research. Our work has already identified a large number of odorous substances in various acrylate adhesives. These odors have diverse chemical structures and characteristics. It is the first time some of these odorous substances have been detected in adhesives.

A number of different types of adhesives are being investigated, with both the raw materials and the adhesives in the processed and cured states forming part of the studies. The findings are providing information about possible reaction paths and sources of the odorous substances. This is enabling strategies to prevent odor formation to be developed.