Joint sealants are used for many different purposes indoors and outdoors and the selection of a suitable sealant is crucial for effective adhesion and longevity of the joint seal. Sealants labeled with the seal of all-weather technology can even be used “under extreme conditions (-5 ºC)” on the construction site, which was determined and successfully carried out together with the Institute for Window Technology (ift) in Rosenheim.
TEROSON’s consulting and service packages round off the product profile to ensure that any bonding and sealing in any façade and around windows can be mastered safely.
In outdoor areas, elastic sealant is used to seal facade elements, structural and connection joints and glazing. The decisive factors here include resistance to ageing and weathering and UV stability.
TEROSON SE 108xlt, for example, is a neutral-curing silicone with a mold-inhibiting fungicide and 25% permissible total deformation, which is also suitable for sanitary applications.
Both acrylic sealant and silicone sealant are used indoors and outdoors to seal windows and doors. In conjunction with joint sealing tapes, the sealant serves as protection against driving rain, draughts, noise and therefore also heat loss. TEROSON SE 139 is a proven, highly elastic acrylic sealant that is used in many other construction applications in addition to the connection joint. Including heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
There are various areas of application for joint sealing on masonry, such as sealing settlement cracks, filling expansion joints, construction joints on ventilated rainscreen facades and connection joints in ETIC systems.
In addition to the sealant, the choice of suitable sealing film plays a decisive role depending on the application. TEROSON Bautechnik offers a wide range of sealing films, sealing tapes and sealants for facade connections, the application of which is described with detailed images in the TEROSON Profi-Guide. The TEROSON Profi-Guide is available free of charge.
A distinction is made between elastic and plastic sealants. Plastoelastic and elastoplastic sealants are located in between, but overall every sealant has both plastic and elastic properties, meaning that the classification transitions are fluid.
If the sealant remains relatively soft after curing, it is an elastic sealant, as is the case with silicone. Wherever relative movements need to be compensated for, silicone is more likely to be used if the elasticity of acrylic is not sufficient. After a force is applied, the elastic sealant has the ability to deform back.
This sealant deforms irreversibly when force is applied in order to relieve the applied stress. Plasticity is desirable, e.g. for setting joints where the joint flanks can move against each other.
Acrylic sealant has numerous areas of application for sealing joints indoors and outdoors, only in sanitary areas is silicone used instead of acrylic. Acrylic is used if the joint is to be painted over after sealing.
- Expansion joint in interior areas
- Connection joint in exterior and interior areas
- Masonry cracks in exterior areas
- Versatile use, e.g. on plaster, wood, glass, plasterboard, fiber cement
- Can be painted over
- For indoor and outdoor use
- Water-permeable with increased moisture
- Some volume shrinkage during curing
- Elasto-plastic or elastic
Silicone has similar properties to acrylic, but is water-repellent and is therefore used in particular for sealing joints in sanitary areas. It cannot be painted over but is available in various colors.
- Water-repellent
- Permanently elastic
- No volume shrinkage during curing
- Fungus-inhibiting effect
- Dimensionally stable
- Sanitary area
- Window connection joint
- Joint sealant for facade elements
- Glass sealing for wooden windows
The MS polymer sealant is particularly characterized by the fact that the primer is already contained in the sealant, which saves one work step. MS polymer is primarily used for expansion and connection joints where primers are to be used and where wash-out must be avoided and/or overpainting (paint compatibility) must be possible.
- Durably elastic
- Weather resistant
- Vibration tolerant
- Can be painted over
- High tear resistance
- Primer already contained in the sealant
- Very good adhesion
- Facade elements in interior and exterior areas
- Air conditioning and ventilation technology
- Metal construction
- Gasket material for glazing
Rubber-based sealants contain solvents, which makes the sealant very easy to apply. The rubber sealant shows its advantages when sealing joints, particularly on seams that are difficult to access, thanks to its good flow properties. The sealant is suitable for many materials and can even be used on damp or oily substrates.
- Good leveling properties
- Good adhesion even on non-polar substrates
- Can be painted over
- Contains solvent
- Resistant to weathering
- Very good adhesion to many substrates
- Adheres to most substrates without primer
- Very good mold resistance
- Also adheres to wet surfaces
- Areas exposed to the weather
- Seams that are difficult to access
- Damp substrates
- Oily substrates
- Very suitable for bonding rubber, glass, steel, aluminum, felt and wood
Humans have been sealing joints and cracks of all kinds or bonding one material to another since time immemorial. Over 100,000 years ago, Neanderthals used birch pitch to bond sharp stone arrowheads to the shaft to ensure hunting success. In ancient shipbuilding, pitch, tar and tree resins were used to seal the hull, known as caulking. Around 1700 AD, the breakthrough of modern sealants began with the use of natural rubber and research into window putty. Natural rubber was already being used around 1600 BC by indigenous peoples in what is now South America, e.g. for rubber balls, the most important utensil in Mesoamerican ball games.
In Europe, it was the physicist J. A. C. Charles who used rubber to seal textiles in 1783, from which the Montgolfier brothers’ first hot air balloon was made, which successfully completed its maiden flight after 25 minutes.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, with the advent of polymer chemistry, many synthetic sealants based on silicone, polysulphide, polyurethane, isobutene-isoprene rubber and silane-modified polymers (SMP) were developed. There is no end in sight to the development of sealants and ecology and economy are playing an increasingly important role.
TEROSON can look back on more than 120 years of brand history and joined the Henkel Group in 1991. Being part of the global Henkel Group further increased research and development resources and TEROSON Bautechnik has now been a leader in the field of specialty sealants for facades and windows for 25 years.
