Molecular weight and crosslinking on the adhesion performance and flexibility of acrylic PSAs

Acrylic pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) are used in the production of flexible displays. Acrylic PSAs must have high flexibility and recovery to meet the industry demands for flexible displays. For these reasons, acrylic PSAs were designed to determine the effects of molecular weight and cross-linking on acrylic PSAs. Stress relaxation and creep tests were measured with dynamic mechanical analysis to identify the flexibility and recovery of the acrylic PSAs. The molecular weight and glass transition temperature of the PSAs were measured by gel permeation chromatography and differential scanning calorimetry. A texture analyzer was used to measure the adhesion performance of the acrylic PSAs. With increasing molecular weight, the adhesion performance increased, especially from 86 to 108 K molecular weight PSAs. This is due to the entanglement of the polymer chains. The stress and recovery of cross-linked acrylic PSAs was much higher than that of neat acrylic PSAs. This result is attributed to interactions between the polymer chains due to cross-linking.