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Lighter plastisols. Lighter vehicles.
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3M Glass Bubbles are an industry-proven solution for lightweight plastisols. Over the years, we’ve shown again and again how lighter seam sealants and underbody coatings can help you reduce vehicle weight while meeting your requirements for consistency, wettability, dispersion and paintability.
In fact, 3M Glass Bubbles can help reduce the overall weight of seam sealant and underbody coatings by up to 40% – even higher if applied using precision automated equipment, without an increase in equipment wear. Plastisols using 3M Glass Bubbles can also help you meet your sustainability goals.* Let’s talk about your needs for lightweight seam sealers, fillers and underbody coatings.
Download: 3M™ Glass Bubbles for seam sealants & underbody coatings brochure (PDF, 189 KB)
3M Glass Bubbles: helping unlock the power of lightweight plastisols
Producing lightweight materials with 3M Glass Bubbles extends to much more than SMC panels or small thermoplastic parts. Lightweight seam sealants and undercoating can go a long way toward helping OEMs improve fuel economy, increasing electric battery range and meeting stringent global fuel efficiency requirements.
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3M Glass Bubbles for seam sealers and underbody coatings can:
- Reduce plastisol weight up to 40%
- Retain same processability as standard density plastisols
- Enable faster wetting and dispersion through lower aspect ratio
- Help produce easily skived surfaces
- Enable Class A paintable surfaces
- Maintain equipment with wear equivalent standard density plastisol
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Helping OEMs reach sustainability goals
3M Glass Bubbles can make a real difference in reducing CO₂ emissions from manufacturing lines. In fact, using Life Cycle Analysis data, 3M performed a study which demonstrated that use of 3M Glass Bubbles can help OEMs mitigate carbon footprint incurred from their sourced plastisol material by 4.8% when switching from a standard density to a lightweight formulation using 3M Glass Bubbles.*
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*The information we are furnishing you, provided free of charge, is based on a representative formulation calculated by 3M and is based off material specification and industry available information. While we believe that these results are reliable, their accuracy or completeness is not guaranteed. Your results may vary due to differences in formulations. This information is intended for use by persons with the knowledge and technical skills to analyze, handle and use such information. You must evaluate and determine whether the product is suitable for your intended application. The foregoing information is provided “AS-IS”. In providing this information 3M makes no warranties regarding product use or performance, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular use.
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Preserving your application equipment – 3M Glass Bubbles vs. standard density coatings
Some grades of 3M Glass Bubbles have been developed specifically for plastisols and plastisol application equipment. They feature high isostatic crush strength for very low bubble breakage. So the wear on equipment can be very similar to that from standard seam sealants and coatings.
The chart at right shows how. Rigorous 3M testing revealed application equipment wear (in millimeters of diameter) from plastisols using our latest 3M Glass Bubbles technology vs. standard-density plastisols and those produced using 3M Glass Bubbles with lower crush strengths. The result is clear: 3M Glass Bubbles can help enable the production of lightweight seam sealants and undercoatings without significant additional wear on application equipment.
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3M Glass Bubbles are supported with global sales, technical and customer service resources. Contact us for more information, including formulation assistance or questions about a specific application.
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