Characterization of Structural Epoxy Adhesive Film by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

The increasing use of Structural Epoxy Adhesive Films in primary aircraft structures has led to increased attempts to devise means of chemically characterizing the proprietaryformulations used. The techniques used for the characterization are mostly various forms of chromatography, the usefulness of which in these applications is increasingly being recognised. HPLC techniques can be used to monitor the chemical compositions of one component epoxy resin adhesives for quality assurance. If the composition of the adhesive is unknown, it is best to apply several differentHPLC techniques and utilize different detectors. It has been shown that HPLC or HPLC supported by spectroscopic techniques may be used to isolate and identify resincomponents [1-4].The aim of this study was to assess the degree to which a formulated adhesive film can be analysed by these techniques