Plasmatreat will be again part of the Bondexpo, the internationally leading trade-show for bonding technology in Stuttgart, Germany. Visitors can look forward to three fascinating performances focusing on “Openair®-Plasma for Secure Adhesion”.
Good surface wetting
Poor surface wetting
Visitors to the Plasmatreat stand have certainly come to the right place if they want to discover the adhesive strength of their workpiece. The market leader in atmospheric plasma jet technology is inviting visitors to perform a test ink or contact angle measurement in a test laboratory to determine the surface tension of their components, whatever the material, before and after plasma treatment. Cold seal tape is then used to test the bonding results.
“The dual effect of microfine cleaning and powerful activation in a single step far outweighs the effectiveness of conventional systems. Pretreatment with Openair plasma significantly increases the adhesion capacity and wetability of the material surface in a precisely adjustable manner. This ensures long-time stable bonding of adhesives and coatings even under the most challenging conditions”, explains Joachim Schüßler, sales director of Plasmatreat GmbH.
Plasmatreat has joined forces with system partner CeraCon to demonstrate how a 1-component polyurethane foam can be bonded to polypropylene. It is not normally possible to achieve a bond between these two materials unless the non-polar plastic is pretreated to modify its surface, thereby increasing the surface energy to such an extent that it becomes receptive to the polyurethane bond. The live demonstration showed just how simple, effective and environmentally friendly the bonding process becomes when atmospheric pressure plasma is used.
The third demonstration is something rather special: Visitors watch a digital animation of the plasma process on the screen whilst simultaneously experiencing the actual pretreatment played out live in a robotic cell in front of them. The robot controls not just the plasma nozzles, but also the entire on-screen presentation. For instance, in a continuous process you can watch the cleaning of an aluminium die cast housing, the activation of a plastic surface and the combined microfine cleaning and locally selective plasma coating of aluminium for subsequent bonding processes.