VictorRen@zs-crown.com / export@zs-crown.com +86-13802693067

Household Appliances Fixation: How Modern Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Tapes Achieve Permanent Bonding under Extreme Conditions

2025-12-08

Back in the day, household appliances like air conditioners, dishwashers, ovens, washing machines, and refrigerators were held together by mechanical fasteners like clips, rivets, and screws. Today, these fasteners are rapidly getting replaced by pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes, but these are not regular tapes.

Pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes are specially designed pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) systems that can bond components permanently, even when they operate at 80 to 180 degrees Celsius continually and even deal with momentary temperature spikes of up to 250 degrees Celsius without losing adhesion, delaminating, cracking, or facing embrittlement.

What Challenges Do PSA Tapes Deal With?

Before the advent of PSA tapes, it seemed contradictory to combine exceptionally long-term anti-ageing performance and high temperature resistance. This is because heat quickens chain scission, cross-link breakage, and oxidation. Now, these processes have a reputation for making adhesives flow and lose holding power.

That is not all. This process also makes adhesives brittle. These challenges are quite a handful, but PSA tapes aren't affected by them. Due to this, they are the most reliable permanent fixation methods for critical parts like control board stiffeners, compressor mounts, evaporator coils, oven door linings, refrigerator condensers, and washing machine motors.

Why Are PSA Tapes Effective?

There are a handful of reasons PSA tapes can be trusted. Some of them are:

1. They are built from plastic that enjoys heat

Unlike regular glue, which loses its power and melts when the temperature gets to 100 degrees Celsius, PSA tapes were designed from materials that can easily last the test of time. One of the major materials used in making them is high-performance acrylics. They are clean and tough.

Plus, they can deal with daily temperatures as high as 180–200°C. What's more? Another material used in making this tape is silicone. This material remains comfortable when the temperature gets as high as 260°C. That's not all. It deals with chemicals and oils very easily.

Household Appliances Fixation: How Modern Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Tapes Achieve Permanent Bonding under Extreme Conditions 1

The plastics used in making PSA tapes have backbones made of silicon-oxygen or carbon-carbon (acrylic) chains. Interestingly, these chains just never break down even after being subjected to heat for decades.

2: They Deliberately Avoid Traditional Tackifiers

The average adhesive relies significantly on rosin esters or hydrocarbon resins, as they need huge amounts of these substances to attain immediate tack. Of course, they work in the short run; unfortunately, we can't say the same in the long run.

The implication of this is that when used in putting household appliances together, they fall apart as these appliances begin ageing. In a couple of years, adhesives that face temperatures as high as 100 degrees Celsius become weak as hydrocarbon resins and rosin esters polymerize further, volatilize, and oxidize. This ultimately makes the adhesive brittle and ineffective.

PSA tapes, on the other hand, do not use tackifiers like rosin esters or hydrocarbon resins in huge amounts. Some even go as far as eliminating them. So, how then do they generate tack? This is done through high glass-transition-temperature (Tg) acrylic co-monomers, meticulous molecular weight distribution, and polar functional groups directly built into the polymer chain.

This creates an adhesive that doesn't seem so strong initially but gets stronger with age.

3: They Use Sophisticated Antioxidant and Stabilizer Packages

The best acrylics are affected by thermo-oxidative degradation when left unprotected. PSA tapes, however, contain protections from thermo-oxidative degradation, and they come in various forms.

These forms include:

Primary antioxidants, which release hydrogen to offset free radicals.
Secondary antioxidants (thioethers and phosphites), which break down hydroperoxides prior to an attack on the polymer backbone.
Hindered Amine Light Stabilizers (HALS), which have the ability to regenerate, ultimately helping them provide protection for decades. Interestingly, they come in handy indoors, where reflected window UV and fluorescent lighting cause damage over 15–20 years.
Metal deactivators chelate iron ions from stamped metal or wiring, which could speed up oxidation.

Although these additives are available at 0.5–2%, they come in handy in extending the lifespan of household appliances from a couple of years to a couple of decades.

4: They Contain Oxygen-Barrier Carriers That Double as Functional Components

Oxygen-barrier carriers work as handling aids, but that's just one of their functions. In appliance tapes, they help with anti-ageing, thanks to features like:

15–50 µm aluminum foil reflects radiant heat, functions as a near-perfect moisture and oxygen barrier, and attains UL94 V-0 flame inhibition.
Glass cloth carriers supply outstanding tear resistance and dielectric strength for motor and compressor mounts.
Silicone adhesive + polyimide film is used near 250 °C heating elements.
Thin PET carriers with thick cross-linked acrylic layers offer a cost-effective solution for 120–150°C zones.

5: They Possess Adhesive Thickness and Differential Constructions

Thicker adhesive layers (100–300 µm) are important for soaking up differential thermal expansion between plastic parts and metal parts. A 200 µm layer can easily house thermal cycles in their hundreds without creating destructive stress.

Lots of tapes are "double-sided differential": one side bonds to hot metals by using high-temperature silicone adhesive. The other side, however, uses acrylic optimized for painted surfaces or plastics. This design is common in refrigerator evaporator assemblies and oven door seals.

Household Appliances Fixation: How Modern Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Tapes Achieve Permanent Bonding under Extreme Conditions 2

How Important are PSA Tapes?

PSA tapes are super effective and come in handy in making household appliances last the test of time, but only a handful of people know this. So, when your appliances work perfectly and silently decade after decade, you might want to attribute this to the quality of their motors or circuit boards. However, the fact is they aren't the real MVPs. PSA tapes are the reason for this durability. They might be a few grams, but they are forever strong, vibration-proof, and heat-proof.

Conclusion

Through a blend of thoughtful thickness design, oxygen-impermeable carriers, state-of-the-art stabilizer packages, almost perfect elimination of oxidisable tackifiers, aggressive cross-linking, and stable polymers, manufacturers have offered us a tape that stays flexible and strong for a long time after an appliance's warranty expires.

Are you a manufacturer looking for pressure-adhesive tapes for your household products? Partner with Crown Adhesive Tapes for custom solutions to your manufacturing needs.

Contact us now or check our list of adhesive tapes.

New Energy PV Module Encapsulation: How Does Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Tape Resist UV Rays and Water to Extend Module Lifespan?

Key to Wearable Device Bonding: How Does Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive Functional Film Achieve Softness and Breathability for Skin-Contact Scenarios?