How adhesive bandages are made

The first Band-Aids were handmade strips 18 inches long, and they earned just $3,000 in 1921.

stations: 7
things upstream: 40
raw sources: 12
steps from the ground: 8

The short version

Bandages are converted from rolls. Patents describe a web of fabric or polyurethane film laminated to adhesive and siliconized release paper. The layers are peeled apart so the paper can be scored and a center wound layer laid down, then rejoined and sent between a die roll and an anvil roll that cuts out each shape. Sterile versions are packaged and irradiated with gamma rays.

Roll-coat the adhesive

A roller spreads solvent-based acrylic adhesive across release paper that has been siliconized on one side. The solvent evaporates and leaves a tacky layer.

Goes in
Adhesive Paper
Laminate to the carrier

The coated paper is pressed against the carrier strip, a fabric or a polyurethane film about 35 μm thick in one example, and the stack is slit to width and wound into a feedstock roll.

Goes in
Cotton fabric Polyurethane
Separate and score

Driven rolls pull the stack apart. The release strip runs between an embossing roll and an anvil roll, which scores it down the middle so a user can peel it off later.
Lay down the center

A wound layer goes on the middle of the strip, leaving the adhesive edges clear. One patent feeds a non-stick gel from a hollow needle, while other designs use an absorbent pad of folded nonwoven.
Relaminate the stack

The scored release strip returns to its old position on the bandage strip and covers the center layer, which keeps the wound side untouched from here on.
Die-cut each shape

The stack passes between a die roll and an anvil. The cut goes through the bandage strip and not the paper, and corners are rounded here. Delaminating rolls then lift away the waste skeleton.
Package and irradiate

Strips are cut apart and sealed into wrappers. For a sterile product the sealed packs are treated with gamma rays, and the wrapper keeps them clean until opened.

Goes in
Paper

End of the lineAdhesive bandage

Worth repeating

Earle Dickson invented the Band-Aid in 1920 for his wife Josephine, who often cut and burned herself cooking.
Machine-made Band-Aids arrived in 1924, and sterilized ones went on sale in 1939.