What is adhesive tape?

Structure of adhesive tapes

Adhesive tapes are composed of carriers, pressure sensitive adhesives(PSAs) and separators. There are
roughly divided into two types: double-coated and single-coated. Various functional adhesive tapes are
being developed by selecting constituent materials successfully.

The mechanism of “sticking”

One of the sticking mechanism between adhesive tapes and objects is ”intermolecular force”. This is an
electrical interaction occurring when two molecules come into close proximity with each other.
Generally, two objects don’t stick together however close they are. The reason is that the surfaces of
objects are rough at the nano level and molecules can not approach each other until the intermolecular
force works. For filling the unevenness of both object’s surface and allowing them to stick together, we
can use “PSAs". The fluidity of PSAs fill the objects surface unevenness, resulting in the occurring
intermolecular force that stick objects together.
Difference between “adhesive” and “PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive)”

The most common material used to stick objects together is “adhesive”. Actually, PSA is a type of
adhesive, which can stick objects when pressure is applied to.

Compared with adhesive, a major feature of PSA is absence of state change before or after
bonding(pressing) to objects. As three states of matter, there are solids, liquids and gases. PSA always
has both liquid and solid characteristics. On the other hand, adhesive is changing its state from liquid to
solid through curing process.

Compared with adhesive, the advantages of adhesive tape using PSA are “immediate adhesion”, “can be
converted to any shape”, and “uniform thickness”. Because of these advantages, adhesive tape is highly
convenient and is used in a wide range of applications. On the other hand, the one of disadvantage is
weaker adhesive force than adhesive.