Carrier
Carrier turns up in 2 fields: adhesives, paper optics. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Carrier in adhesives
The film, foam, paper or fabric layer inside a tape that the adhesive is coated onto.
In double-coated tapes the carrier sits between two adhesive layers, giving body, tear strength, conformability or thickness. Polyester film carriers give dimensional stability, foam carriers absorb gaps and stress, and nonwovens help die-cutting and conformability. Tapes without a carrier are called transfer tapes.
"Go with the foam carrier on the trim, the film carrier won't follow the curve of the panel."
Carrier in paper optics
Water-soluble polymer such as PVOH that boosts optical brightener efficiency in coatings and size-press starch.
In coatings, brightener molecules lose much of their effect when they clump together. A carrier like polyvinyl alcohol, starch or CMC keeps them separated in a favorable state, raising whiteness from the same dose and pushing the greening point higher. Coating chemists raise carrier level before they add more brightener.
"Before you add more OBA to the top coat, try another half part of carrier; it usually gets us four or five CIE units."