Plasma treatment cleans, etches and functionalizes surfaces to increase their surface energy and receptiveness to bonding. By using a plasma treater wire and cable marking operations can become greener, more economic and more productive.

A recent educational webinar on using atmospheric plasma to pretreat wire and cable jackets prior to ink jet printing is available by following this link.

Each Corona Treater has its own unique characteristics

The process of generating corona is essentially the same for all corona treaters. Corona is ionized air created by discharging high frequency high voltage energy across a metal or insulated electrode. This electrode is positioned over a grounded roll, and the space between the electrode and the roll is called the air gap. This is where corona is created and substrates are passed through this gap to receive corona treatment.

The variables of a corona treater are the power supply, electrode type and ground roll type. Traditional metal electrode systems with covered rolls are used extensively in film extrusion applications. High speed photography reveals that these corona systems produce corona with high filamentary discharges. In addition, damage to these types of ground roll coverings can result in inconsistent treatment and eventual roll covering failure.

Meanwhile systems that use ceramic electrodes have the options of using a bare or coated roll. Bare rolls eliminate the possibility of roll covering failure. Many companies will offer a ceramic covered groundroll to complement a ceramic electrode system. However some corona treater designs go a step further with a proprietary roll covering that offers a number of application benefits including insurance against backside treatment and pinholing. High speed photography of the corona generated by these systems depict a more homegenous corona than their either their bare roll or metal electrode counterparts.

The result is a more universal corona discharge which leads to more consistent treatment across a variety of application requirements.

Corona Treaters are used extensively in the film converting industry.

Corona treaters are the most commonly used surface treating technology in the film converting industry. Corona treating is very efficient at raising the surface energy of substrates to enable improved adhesion on a variety of non-porous films. Corona is similar to plasma surface treating in that each rely on the electrical ionization of a gas. Plasma creates a smooth, undifferentiated cloud of ionized gas at much lower voltage level than corona.

There are many different designs of corona treaters depending on the converting application. Some corona treating systems are capable of treating both metallized and non-metallized surfaces. While others are designed to treat only non-conductive surfaces while providing the ability to to use metal segments to treat only certain portions of the web. This is common in film extrusion applications such as blown and cast film.

For coating, laminating & printing corona treatment is required acrosss the entire length of the web. In this case fixed width ceramic electrodes are used to provide reliable treatment.

The best way to determine which technology is best for your application is to put it to the test in a laboratory trial.

Flame Treater with Robot for Treating Automobile Dashboard Prior to Painting.

Flame plasma systems are often integrated with robotics for precise treatment patterns.  With a multi-axis robot treatment paths can be designed to meet a wide range of requirements for a variety of parts. A new video shows how flame treatment is used to treat an automobile dashboard made of EVA.

Parts are scanned by the operator, placed in a fixture and the robot executes the program path. Variables such as treating head distance and speed are all part of the equation for successful treatment. In this video clip the flame treater raises the surface energy of the dashboard and glove box prior to painting to ensure a adequate paint adhesion.

Click on the following link to watch a new video showing a flame surface treater in operation with a robot .

In this dynamic webinar Rory Wolf, author of Plasma Surface Modification: Surface Treatment and Adhesion, will unlock the secrets of using a wide range of atmospheric plasma and flame plasma surface treating technologies to improve adhesion, functionalize surfaces and improve productivity.

Plastics News Plasma Webinar

The webinar will feature live video feeds of various atmospheric plasma systems in action.

This webinar is ideal for any engineer or production manager looking to improve surface cleaning, adhesion and functionality without the use of hazardous chemicals or primers. A wide range of applications will be reviewed for printing, coating, decorating and bonding materials from the following processes:

• Injection molding
• Extrusion
• Thermoforming
• Films and sheets
• Blow molding

Materials to be discussed include:

• ABS ASA EPDM EVA HDPE LDPE PC PE PET PMMA PP PS PU PVC PBT TPU
• UV Inks and adhesives, solvent and water based inks and adhesives, paints and coatings

Click here to register

As a dry single stage process atmospheric plasma treating removes contaminations by chemical reaction and physical ablation. Without the use of chemical solvents a significant increase in surface wettability, and a subsequent increase in surface adhesion in achieved. 

Learn more about this application by reading Rory’ Wolf’s technical paper  Plasma Glass Cleaning Removes Organic Contamination .

It features the industry’s most efficient use of gas chemistry’s to clean, etch and functionalize surfaces. By reducing the amount of gas required by as much as 80% the technology offers an improved operational cost than other atmospheric plasma systems.

Enercon is currently offering complimentary lab trials and more information including a video introduction to the technology’s features and benefits is available at http://plasma4.net/.

Atmospheric plasma is a viable solution for many of these adhesion challenges as it is easily integrates into production lines and can treat a wide variety of surfaces including polymers, glass and metals.

Silicone is frequently used in the construction of solar modules and atmospheric plasma has proven to work quite well at improving bonds made with silicone.

A specific example of this is securely bonding reactive hot-melt silicone (100% silicone) with polycarbonate junction boxes and the glass or aluminum frames of PV modules. PV module frames are also sealed with this silicone, using it as an encapsulant

The improved performance often leads to improved production speeds and additional cost savings including the ability to use less expensive adhesives and the elimination of mechanical surface preparations such as glue flap roughening and perforating.

Atmospheric plasma produces these results by cleaning the surface of contaminants, micro-roughening the surface to create more bonding sites and functionalizing for adhesion. Key to the success is a blown-ion discharge that bombards the surface with a high speed discharge of ions. Positive ion bombardment facilitates a micro-etching or scrubbing (ablation) effect to remove (desorb) organic and inorganic contaminants from the surface.

Atmospheric plasma systems are safe to operate and easy to integrate into exisitng or new production lines. Click the following links for more information on a single head plasma treater for folding cartons and multiple treatment heads for improving adhesion for folder gluer carton applications.

Plasma Treatment of polypropylene toothbrushes enables printing.

Printex is a leading manufacturer of pad printing equipment for a range of industries including the medical device field. Quite often their customers need to print on surfaces that have inherently low surface energy. To make inks bond with these surfaces Printex will either integrate a plasma treatment system into their pad printer or they’ll reccommend a plasma treatment system be installed prior to printing.

Take for example polypropylene toothbrushes. You’ll see they often have your dentist’s name printed on them. That wouldn’t be possible without plasma treatment integrated with a pad printer. Follow these links to learn more about the ways leading dental supply companies like Ranir LLC benefit from the combination of pad printing and plasma treatment or to see a plasma treatment and pad printing video demonstration.