PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?
PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?
(OP)
Hello,
I have some flexible tubes of PFA (1/8" OD 1/16"ID) that I need to bond to a larger PFA tube (rigid). I was wondering what was the best way to do that. I just ordered some epoxy for PFA and I was also looking into plastic welding. What would be your advise on the best way to do that? The assembly will go to a pressure of ~3bar.
If plastic welding is a good option, which kit do you recommend me to buy? I am willing to put up to 400$ in that thing.
I also need to do the same stuff but with PTFE. Now PTFE will be more annoying as it does not really weld and does not really stick. The adhesive I ordered is also rated for PTFE (treating agent + epoxy), but I wanted to know if you had any good options for me to consider. Same dimensions
Thanks a lot!
I have some flexible tubes of PFA (1/8" OD 1/16"ID) that I need to bond to a larger PFA tube (rigid). I was wondering what was the best way to do that. I just ordered some epoxy for PFA and I was also looking into plastic welding. What would be your advise on the best way to do that? The assembly will go to a pressure of ~3bar.
If plastic welding is a good option, which kit do you recommend me to buy? I am willing to put up to 400$ in that thing.
I also need to do the same stuff but with PTFE. Now PTFE will be more annoying as it does not really weld and does not really stick. The adhesive I ordered is also rated for PTFE (treating agent + epoxy), but I wanted to know if you had any good options for me to consider. Same dimensions
Thanks a lot!





RE: PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?
PFA can be bonded thermally by heating, either via infrared radiant or hot air heating. You'll need to heat until the part becomes transparent rather than bluish translucent (the point at which you can flare it) and then a bit farther than that- don't know the temperature for sure but it will definitely be above 300 C. Inert gas may be needed in that process to develop a full proper weld- don't know, but know that you can literally just heat PVDF up on a ceramic hot plate top until it starts to melt, then stick the two pieces to one another to result in a messy but strong butt weld- you may be able to do that with PFA but I've never tried.
Doing an attachment of the geometry you're talking about will be tough- not just to get the parts to stick to one another but also to keep that 1/16" hole open.
Sorry I don't have a nice easy solution for you. You may need to revise your design geometry to make this possible- or you can just try stuff until something works.
RE: PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?
RE: PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?
the PFA epoxy I had was not good at all, it was just some regular epoxy and they have put lots of materials they "suppose they can bond" in the description.
I got another kit more "professional", with an etcher and a special 2-tubes epoxy, for 130 bucks. I still need to try that one, I'll need a fume hood as the MSDS shows how nasty is that thing ...
RE: PFA bonding: plastic welding? Adhesive?