Medical Grade Adhesive

Medical devices present manufacturers with a special challenge: As well as being health-compatible, the materials used must allow high-precision production and permanent joining and must withstand various sterilization methods. This applies especially to the adhesives used for assembly.

Medical grade adhesive can be used to bond medical products, such as syringes, dialysis filters, blood bags and tube connections. These medical products are usually made from a range of synthetic materials, including plastics that are hard to bond, such as PEEK, PE and PP. Common plastics such as PVC and ABS, on the other hand, are well suited to bonding.

Disposable medical products are often produced in large quantities. In addition to their mechanical bond strength, rapid curing of the adhesives used is important to allow high volume production. For transparent and UV-permeable materials, UV-curing medical grade adhesive can be used. For UV-impermeable substrates we recommend LED curing. For visual quality inspection, fluorescent versions of our medical grade adhesives are also available.  

For reusable medical products, durability and the ability to withstand frequent sterilization play a vital role. Cured acrylate adhesives have a high resistance to sterilization by autoclaving, gamma radiation and ETO. These methods have no measurable negative impact on Panacol's medical grade adhesives. Electron-beam sterilization has even been shown to improve the adhesion of some medical grade adhesives of the Vitralit® series. This is due to an increase in the degree of polymerization of these products.

Typical applications of adhesives in medical device assembly are:

• Bonding connecting elements and catheters
   
• Needle bonding
   
• Bonding plastic enclosures

Specially formulated medical grade adhesives are certified for medical applications