How This Tool Works
This checker compares two product selections and flags known compatibility issues between them, including cases where a chemistry might attack, soften, or fail to bond well against what it's paired with. Select the two products you're considering, whether that's two adhesives used together in the same assembly, or a product you're testing against a substrate, and run the check before you commit to a formulation for a new build.
Why Substrate Compatibility Matters
Adhesive failures rarely show up on day one. Plasticizer migration out of a soft PVC can slowly degrade a bond that looked fine at installation. A solvent-based adhesive can craze or dissolve certain foams and coated plastics on contact. Two different sealant chemistries curing against each other at a transition joint can inhibit cure or lose adhesion right at the interface. None of that shows up in a five-minute visual inspection, which is exactly why compatibility needs to be checked before a product goes into production, not after a warranty claim comes in.
Common Compatibility Issues
Most compatibility failures fall into a few recognizable patterns. Chemical attack happens when a solvent or plasticizer in one product softens, swells, or dissolves the surface of another material — common with certain foams, coated plastics, and flexible vinyls. Cure inhibition happens when one chemistry interferes with another's curing reaction at a shared interface, leaving a soft or tacky bond line long after it should have set. Adhesion loss over time happens when a bond looks fine on day one but degrades gradually from plasticizer migration, moisture ingress, or repeated flex — the failure mode that's hardest to catch without accelerated aging tests. Knowing which pattern you're guarding against helps you interpret a result and decide how much testing it still warrants.
How to Read Your Results
A "Compatible" result means we have no known issue with that specific pairing, not that no further testing is required. Surface preparation, service temperature, joint design, and substrate condition all affect real-world performance beyond a compatibility match. For a new assembly, testing your actual production samples with your actual products, under representative conditions, gives you confidence a compatibility check alone can't. If you get an unexpected result on a pairing you're already running in production, contact our technical team — there may be a substitute formulation or a barrier layer that resolves it.