Patent ID: 11905438
Assignee: 3M INNOVATIVE PROPERTIES COMPANY
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC C  B | IPC B  C

Claim 0:
1. A process of manufacturing a pressure sensitive adhesive, comprising the steps of:
a) providing a hot melt mixing apparatus comprising a reaction chamber;
b) providing a hot melt processable pressure sensitive adhesive composition comprising:
(1) a (meth)acrylate copolymer component comprising:
i. one or more C1-C32 (meth)acrylic acid ester monomer units;
ii. one or more ethylenically unsaturated monomer units having functional groups selected from the group consisting of acid, hydroxyl, acid anhydride, epoxide, amine, amide groups, and any combinations thereof; and
iii. one or more ethylenically unsaturated monomer units which are copolymerizable with monomer units (i) and/or (ii); and

(2) a crosslinking system selected from the group consisting of thermal crosslinking systems, actinic radiation crosslinking systems, and a combination thereof;
the hot melt processable pressure sensitive adhesive composition
(3) optionally further comprising at least one of expandable microspheres; and
(4) at least one pigment;

c) providing a polymeric resin;
d) subjecting the polymeric resin to a heating step (thereby at least partly remove low Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) from the polymeric resin) thereby forming a (pre-)cleaned polymeric resin;
e) incorporating the (pre-)cleaned polymeric resin and the hot melt processable pressure sensitive adhesive composition in the reaction chamber of the hot melt mixing apparatus;
f) mixing the hot melt processable pressure sensitive adhesive composition and the (pre-) cleaned polymeric resin in the hot melt mixing apparatus thereby forming a hot melt blend;
g) removing the hot melt blend from the hot melt mixing apparatus; and
h) crosslinking the hot melt blend.