Lower purity dimer acid based polyamides used as hot melt adhesives: synthesis and properties

Hot melt polyamides exhibit high adhesive strength. The polyamides synthesized from dimer fatty acids and diamines can present low crystallinity and a broad range of melting temperatures. In this work, polyamides with different compositions of dimer fatty acids, piperazine, ethylenediamine, sebacic acid and stearic acid and different content of secondary diamine (piperazine) and primary diamine (ethylenediamine) were synthesized. Polyamides with higher purity of dimer acids showed greater molecular weight, adhesion performance and a better mechanical resistance evaluated in stress/strain test. Softening point increased with increase in monomers content. By differential scanning calorimetry analysis, it was observed that polyamides with low percentage of monomer content show only one narrow melting peak in 100 °C. The increase in the acids monomer content leads to a larger temperature range of melting peak. The use of dimer fatty acid with a low content of monomers (up to 6%) in the polyamides synthesis promotes the formation of hot melt adhesives with good adhesion performances. The lowest monomer content leads to an increase in molecular weight, viscosity and mechanical properties of polyamide. Increase in the content of primary amines in polyamides increases crystallinity, viscosity and mechanical properties due to the higher number of hydrogen bonds formed by amide groups.