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Emulsion Adhesive

If you have roofing tiles or floor tiles in your home, school, or workplace, chances are it was laid using an emulsion adhesive. Used primarily as an agent to bind tile and synthetic materials to wood substrates, emulsion adhesives are known for being resilient, heat resistant, and strong. As a construction material, emulsion adhesives are found in the majority of buildings in the United States, either in interior or exterior applications, or both. Emulsion adhesives may also be used in the manufacture of furniture and other products, particularly in products which include wood or other decorative veneers.

Emulsion adhesives and asbestos

Emulsion adhesives as used in products today are considered safe by government regulatory standards. But prior to the mid-1980s, many of these compounds contained harmful asbestos as a primary component. Well regarded for its tensile strength, flexibility, and heat resistance, asbestos was long favored by many manufacturers of building materials, as well as contractors and construction workers, who valued these products for their ease of use, as well as for the durability and versatility of asbestos-based emulsion adhesives. And in their viscous, semi-liquid form, the asbestos particles within the adhesives were essentially inert and unable to be inhaled.

As time passed, however, and many of the tiles which were installed using asbestos-based emulsion adhesives were in need of removal during renovation or roof or floor replacement, these adhesives were disturbed, flaking into tiny particles which were dispersed throughout the surrounding air. As a result, construction workers involved in these projects, as well as residents and workers in buildings being renovated, were unknowingly exposed to the dangers of asbestos, including the development of mesothelioma and other cancers. Even after renovations are complete, many of these loosened adhesive particles remain embedded in the surrounding materials, ready t be loosened and set adrift when subsequently disturbed by air currents or other renovations or activity.

Although safety regulations in the United States were amended to ban the use of asbestos in newly manufactured products in 1977, stockpiles of materials that existed at that time were allowed to be used in both residential and commercial construction. What does this mean? It means that any building constructed prior to the mid-1980s is a potential site of asbestos-based emulsion adhesives, and precautions should be taken when renovations are performed on any building which predates the mid-1980s.

Last modified: December 09 2009.