Hot melt runs at temperatures that can cause serious burns. Yet when an operator clears a blocked nozzle or swaps a hose, there is nothing on the glue itself to warn them.
At PPMA Show 2026, the PPMA TV team came to see us at the Alphabond stand and asked Matt to show them what we do about that.
A glue tank that gives nothing away
Hot melt does not behave like a splash of hot water. It sticks to skin and keeps transferring heat, so a glue burn is often worse than the temperature suggests. And on a running line, the gap between “safe to touch” and “not safe” is invisible.
Three questions are worth asking about your own line:
- Can an operator tell, at the nozzle or hose, whether the adhesive is hot? If the answer is “only if they have been told”, that is training, not a control.
- Can you see where the glue has gone on the pack? Clear adhesive is hard to inspect, so a missing bead is easy to miss until a case pops open.
- What happens over a long run? Glue that chars in the tank changes colour and flow, and blocked nozzles follow.
Blue to red, live on the stand
SafeMelt® 98 starts out blue and turns red as it heats. Red means hot, so the warning is built into the adhesive itself. Matt showed it to the camera on the demo table, in a laboratory flask.
He made a second point that is easy to miss. Plenty of companies struggle to see where adhesive has been applied to the pack. A touch of colour shows exactly where it has gone, so teams can spot problems and run more efficiently.
SafeMelt® 98 is our Generation 7 hot melt, the patented colour-changing adhesive in the 98 family. It sits alongside UltimateCool® 98 and 98 Plus, developed for freezer applications and more difficult substrates.
The chart that says more than a data sheet
Matt also held up a thermal stability chart. It compares adhesive samples after two, three and up to seven days at temperature, looking at colour and at viscosity, which is how the adhesive flows in the tank. A standard Generation 1 adhesive starts to char and degrade over that time. UltimateCool® 98 shows almost no change in colour and no real change in viscosity.
For an engineering or production manager, seeing “what you have now” next to “what you could have” does more than an email ever will.
Why we were there
Matt put it simply. Many of our customers visit PPMA, and a relaxed chat at a stand beats shouting over running machines in a factory. Prospects come too, and so do the machinery partners we work with and recommend. Read our PPMA Show 2026 wrap-up for the rest of the show.
Want to see it on your line?
See the change in real time when you consider Alphabond's SafeMelt® 98. Request a free site assessment or talk to an expert today.