Since their introduction half a century ago, acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives have been successfully applied in many fields. In the last fifty years or so, acrylic pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) have made tremendous strides from what was virtually a black art to what is now a sophisticated science. So much so that larger manufacturers of pressure-sensitive adhesives and even their polymer suppliers now use very expensive equipment to study pressure-sensitive adhesive behavior. The three properties which are useful in characterizing the nature of pressure-sensitive adhesives are tack, peel (adhesion) and shear (cohesion). The first measures the adhesive's ability to adhere quickly, the second its ability to resist removal by peeling, and the third its ability to hold in position when shear forces are exerted. The performances of pressure-sensitive adhesives, such as tack, peel and shear, based on polyacrylates synthesized through co-polymerization of acrylate monomers and formulated in organic solvents mixtures are, to a large degree, determined by the molecular weight of acrylic copolymer, polymerization method and especially by the type and quantity of the crosslinking agent added to the PSA. Newly developed solvent-borne PSAs are used in protective foils, removable and repositionable self-adhesive products, water-soluble PSAs and water-dispersible self-adhesive products, photoreactive UV-crosslinkable self-adhesive tapes, and dual-crosslinkable PSAs for self-adhesive tapes with post-crosslinking potential characterized by enhanced cohesion at higher temperatures. The mentioned water-soluble PSAs, water-dispersible self-adhesive products and photoreactive UV-crosslinkable self-adhesives are synthesized in organic solvents as solvent-borne acrylic PSAs. (C) Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009