How do you determine which pretreatment technology is best for your application? It begins with a proper definition of your application. Here are the five key metrics to consider.

• Inherent surface tension of all processed materials
• Surface tension of the interfacial fluid (ink, coating, adhesive)
• Surface chemistry of the materials
• Chemistry of the interfacial fluid
• Production considerations: speed and size of area to be treated

A technology comparison chart provides a great head start in identifying the primary advantages and application considerations of air plasma, flame plasma and variable chemistry plasma. To give you an idea of the interplay of these technologies consider a surface with the following application considerations; a flat object with low surface energy, large treatment area, and thermal sensitivities.

Making your evaluation easier will be working with a company who offers multiple surface treating technologies. This allows you compare technologies and evaluate unbiased results from a controlled environment. Since air plasma is the most economical technology it makes sense to begin testing with it. Blown-arc air plasma systems are highly effective with most surfaces, but for our purposes let’s say the surface energy was not significantly raised after treatment. The next technology to try is blown-ion air plasma treatment. These systems are more aggressive than blown-arc systems, but have a smaller effective treatment area. So since we have a large treatment area the blown-ion system is not a good match.

Flame systems combine aggressive treatment along with the ability to treat large areas. However in this case our surface is thermal sensitive effectively eliminating flame from consideration. The next surface treating system to try is atmospheric plasma. It provides an aggressive yet delicate treatment with a comparatively low thermal output. Its ability to use a variety of gas chemistries also allows the user to employ a recipe based on the surface material, chemistry of the interfacial fluid and desired surface functionality. Combines these features with its ability to be designed to treat large surface areas and we’ve found our solution for our example.

You can learn which surface treatment technology is best for your application with a free laboratory trial comparing the effectiveness of air plasma, flame plasma and atmospheric plasma. Please follow the links for more information on testing atmospheric plasma treatment of webs and the plasma treatment of objects.