Fast-forward to the future with pressure-sensitive adhesive labelling
Imagine having access to a technology that keeps labels pristine through the whole product cycle, however harsh, and allows them to be removed easily when the package is to be re-used. H.B. Fuller’s pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) label capabilities are designed to help take your brand into the future.
Labelling challenges should never limit the creativity of packaging designers, but a radical approach to the package shape, structure or style will often demand an equally innovative adhesive solution. This is where H.B. Fuller brings its technical expertise to customers and other brand specialists, solving labelling challenges and helping make new packaging concepts work through clever adhesive formulations.
H.B. Fuller’s Fulltak SE 7577 PSA adhesives are often used for clear-on-clear labelling to give a ‘no-label’ image to plastic containers. They create high-performance, permanent, filmic labelling – resistant to chemicals, plasticisers, high water temperatures, water whitening and UV – which will adhere firmly even to difficult substrates, complex-shaped surfaces and squeezable bottles.
PSA technology opens up endless scope for variety in label shape and design. Fired by the designer’s imagination, the label becomes a powerful and eye-catching brand statement. H.B. Fuller takes inspired concepts and helps turn them into practical and commercially viable propositions.
PSA label technology can help in meeting the increasing legal sustainability requirements and the expectations of consumers. H. B. Fuller’s Fulltak SE 8301, for instance, allows easy label removal using a normal, warm, caustic wash-off process when processing returnable bottles. With Fulltak SE 7594, paper labels – including VIP (variable-information printing) labels – can be rapidly washed off in cold water before re-using the cores or master reels on which they are supplied. In both cases contamination and consumption of wash water is reduced because the adhesive remains attached to the label. In addition, reliable PSA adhesion avoids product wastage through loss of labels in transit.
Connecting what matters
H.B. Fuller is constantly meeting customers’ changing needs; there is a combination of factors brought together under its ‘connecting what matters’ philosophy.
The company makes its own polymers to compound into adhesives. Its novel resin-polymer hybrid technology leads the field with a unique process which creates PSAs with a variety of properties which can be customised to meet the latest and most specific labelling needs. These are backed by advanced R&D resource, including the Lüneburg Adhesive Academy in Germany, and the Mindelo R&D centre in Portugal with its dedicated PSA testing facility.
Read this article in full in the upcoming May edition of Converter magazine.