Editing Adhesive (section)

== Methods to improve adhesion ==
The quality of adhesive bonding depends strongly on the ability of the adhesive to efficiently cover (wet) the substrate area. This happens when the [[surface energy]] of the substrate is greater than the surface energy of the adhesive. However, high-strength adhesives have high surface energy. Thus, they bond poorly to low-surface-energy polymers or other materials. To solve this problem, surface treatment can be used to increase the surface energy as a preparation step before adhesive bonding. Importantly, surface preparation provides a reproducible surface allowing consistent bonding results. The commonly used surface activation techniques include [[plasma activation]], [[flame treatment]] and wet chemistry priming.<ref name="Pocius">A.V. Pocius, "Adhesion and adhesives technology", Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich (2002)</ref>