Among the most innovative gluing techniques stands out the plasma treatment, many materials, such as polypropylene, polyetherketone or polyoxymethylene, can not be glued at all or stick only with poor results if not subjected to a plasma pretreatment. The high adhesiveness and durable bonding of glass, metal, ceramics and plastics is therefore a major challenge for the manufacturing industry, particularly when it comes to train interiors.
What are plastics and how do they work?
Plasmas are chemically active media, which in relation to the mode of activation and their working power can generate very high or low temperatures, in the first case we speak of thermal plasma, in the second of cold plasma.
The wide temperature range allows a wide variety of applications.
Thermal plasma, thanks to the very high temperatures generated, is widely used in metallurgy for cutting and welding metals. The industrial applications of cold plasma technology, although they are the most varied, can all be traced back to operations of surface modification: activate, clean, coat the surfaces.
The adhesion properties of polyethylene and polypropylene are very poor and the treatment with cold plasma improves them. Cold plasma improves bonding, obtaining surface reactive chemical compounds that are not obtainable with traditional chemical processes.
A considerable advantage is the fact that it is possible to carry out a treatment that involves only the surface layers of material, which therefore leaves the general mechanical properties unaltered, adopting, among other things, low process temperatures that do not damage any degradable substrates. This last advantage offers a possible solution to the problems of wettability and, consequently, of gluing certain types of polymers, including for example polyethylene or polypropylene, which have very poor adhesion properties but a wide range of applications.
Gesa Industry is constantly looking for more and more innovative and efficient production techniques to ensure that each product provides the maximum possible performance.
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