摘要
Use of epoxy as an adhesive is a common practice. The most common applications are permanent sealants. Epoxies have a wide range of operating temperatures, and are very resistance to adhesive failure. When a need to remove this adhesive arises, it is not always easily accomplished especially if the part has excessive adhesive. To maintain fidelity of the parts attached by epoxy, a project evaluating several methods of epoxy removal was conducted. Methods evaluated included low wavelength, near-ultraviolet radiation, solvent dissolution, and thermal cycling. The UV method failed to demonstrate a repeatable dissociation. The solvent study did result in dissociation of bonds, but introduced chemicals that could make subsequent chemical analysis of parts suspect. Thermal cycling showed a high repeatability for dissociation of bonds and may prove to be relatively inexpensive to implement.
Use of epoxy as an adhesive is a common practice. The most common applications are permanent sealants. Epoxies have a wide range of operating temperatures, and are very resistance to adhesive failure. When a need to remove this adhesive arises, it is not always easily accomplished especially if the part has excessive adhesive. To maintain fidelity of the parts attached by epoxy, a project evaluating several methods of epoxy removal was conducted. Methods evaluated included low wavelength, near-ultraviolet radiation, solvent dissolution, and thermal cycling. The UV method failed to demonstrate a repeatable dissociation. The solvent study did result in dissociation of bonds, but introduced chemicals that could make subsequent chemical analysis of parts suspect. Thermal cycling showed a high repeatability for dissociation of bonds and may prove to be relatively inexpensive to implement.
