Subtitutes for Methylene Chloride Contact Cement
OSHA has tightened the safety limits for methylene chloride, a substance in some contact cement. Here's info on alternative adhesives. August 6, 2008
Question
According to my local OSHA enforcement agent the methylene chloride in our contact cement may very well require us to enforce a mandatory respirator use policy - not simply the charcoal filter type - but a self contained unit with its own air supply. What glues are out there that do not contain this chemical and how well do they work? Anyone know whether Lockweld 951 contains the MC?
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From Jeff Pitcher, technical advisor Adhesives Forum:
You've got some options.You can stay with the MC based contact cement and hope to pass the test. If you have proper ventilation this is possible although the OSHA requirement is less than 25 ppm which is pretty tough to meet. I've been suggesting to folks with this issue that they go to flammable contacts which won't give you the OSHA problems but could give you fire department problems.
Another alternative is contact cement which uses a non-flammable solvent called N-propyl bromide. It's not on the OSHA hit list yet but most believe it will be. It's very expensive and more dangerous to your employees than MC (in my opinion).You could go to a waterbased CC but you'll need to re-vamp your process to allow for the longer dry down time.
Finally, you could look at some of the PVA based products if you only do flat panel lay ups.
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