GERMANY – About 200 participants from over 100 enterprises in the wood and furniture sector joined the 16th Jowat Symposium under the headline “Perfect processes”. 

The focus of this year’s event was on latest trends in the technology of bonding, innovative adhesive solutions and the exchange of know-how covering the entire process of bonding.

Bonding is a demanding technology where the quality assurance process already starts in the planning phase. Professor Dr Andreas Groß from the Fraunhofer IFAM explained how the new DIN standard 2304 is going to affect quality and process management in bonding. His presentation provided insights into bonding applications and described why bonding failures are not necessarily “adhesive failures”. In contrary, they are mostly application errors. Exactly at this point, the DIN 2304 provides helpful information for processors on how to organize bonding processes in a professional manner.

Additional presentations and practical workshops – all related to the headline of the symposium – addressed issues before, during and after the actual bonding process. From the selection of an appropriate adhesive for defined substrates, through monomer-reduced polyurethane hot melts and the zero-bondline in edgebanding, all the way to failure analysis and prevention of errors. The program was rounded off with information stands presenting the latest innovations in engineering and R&D from Jowat’s development and business partners.

The symposium ended with the presentation of the Jowat Adhesive Research Award for innovative solutions in the field of adhesive technology. This year, the award went to Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Süllentrop for his dissertation on the development of functional elements suitable for bonding in modern assembly operations.