The ease with which PVA emulsion adhesives can be manufactured has made them familiar across the world. They can be readily produced in countries rich or poor and their consequent low cost has made PVA usage so widespread that the abbreviation will be known by most.

PVA - formally known as poly(vinyl acetate) - adhesives provide excellent bonding to a wide variety of substrates, particularly cellulose-based substrates such as paper and wood. They are therefore used across the construction and packaging industries, as well as in the textile sector for producing laminates of woven and non-woven fabrics. By comparison, poly(ethylene-vinyl acetate) (VAE) adhesives are more difficult to produce and hence more expensive, but can be more versatile. They can attach difficult-to-bond substrates such as plastic films, coated papers, and metal surfaces better than PVA.

Both PVA and VAE are linear polymers with an aliphatic backbone that can make for flexible adhesives. They maintain much of their bond strength as substrates expand and contract due to dissipation of the energy into flexing of the polymer backbone. With this energy being consumed in moving the polymer chains, there is limited stress concentration at the interface.

The chemical differences between VAE and PVA are responsible for diverging emulsion polymerisation processes used to prepare them, although the processes do remain similar in many respects. The monomers are emulsified in water containing poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH). Then, a radical initiator such as t-butyl hydroperoxide or an inorganic persulfate salt begins the polymerization that converts the monomer droplet emulsion into a dispersion of an organic polymer in water. The process is most straightforward when polymerising vinyl acetate by itself to produce PVA adhesives with high molecular weight, high tensile strength and rapid setting speed.

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