What is Cyanoacrylate (CA) and how does it work?
Cyanoacrylate (C5H5NO2) is an acrylic resin that cures almost instantly. The only trigger, or catalyst, it requires are the hydroxyl ions in water. Since almost any substrate you may want to glue will at least have trace amounts of water on it’s surface CA will adhere to most anything. When CA comes into contact with water it undergoes a process called anionic polymerization. In short this simply means the CA molecules start linking up into chains and these chains start whipping around to form a durable plastic mesh. The glue thickens and hardens until the thrashing molecule strands can no longer move.
