Effective plasma pretreatment before bonding plastics

Plasma pretreatment significantly improves the quality of bonding results. The plasma technology used at Regiotape is based on the cold plasma principle. Here, electric arcs are generated by a piezoelectric direct discharge, which effectively processes and treats the surface to be treated. Surfaces functionalized by plasma exhibit a significant improvement in adhesion and can be used on a wide range of materials such as metals, plastics, glass, ceramics, wood and textiles. Depending on the material, plasma pretreatment can achieve an increase in adhesive strength of up to 132 percent.

Regiotape works with the piezobrush® PZ3 from relyon plasma in various areas. The company uses the handheld device to pre-treat customer materials, to improve adhesion and determine suitable adhesive tapes and adhesives, and to clean surfaces before bonding.

For this purpose, the Standard module for electrically non-conductive materials or the Nearfeld module for ectrically conductive materials are available for use depending on the production setup, customer requirements, treatment area and material.

Due to ever new surfaces being used in the automotive, aero, consumer and plastics sectors, the requirements with regard to processing and bonding have changed considerably in recent years. New plastic materials such as carbon, wood-plastic composite (WPC), various polyamides (PA) as well as low-energy materials (PE, PP etc.) are increasingly being combined with bonding technology for design and cost reasons. However, since the surfaces sometimes offer poor adhesion for the anchoring of the adhesive tapes and adhesives, the processing of the surface before bonding is decisive for the success of the bonding.

Here we learned from the company relyon plasma about a possibility that makes it possible to increase adhesion simply and significantly by means of plasma treatment. The low-voltage cold plasma devices from relyon plasma are ideal for conditioning critical surfaces and show excellent adhesion improvement on the surfaces mentioned and many others. We now use the plasma devices to process batch orders and to determine adhesion requirements on a wide variety of materials and are continually surprised by the positive results.

Efficient plasma pretreatment before bonding

An example shows the pretreatment with plasma of PA 6.6. A pretreatment with plasma achieved an adhesive strength improvement (adhesion of the 2K adhesive) of 60 percent.

Another example shows the plasma treatment on a carbon bicycle fork to increase the adhesion for a 2K adhesive used to insert the ball bearing shell. The piezobrush® PZ3 was used in conjunction with the Nearfield module for conductive surfaces. This plasma pretreatment increased the adhesion on the carbon mount by more than 50 percent.

Plasma treatment on a carbon bicycle fork to increase the adhesion for a 2K adhesive used to insert the ball bearing shell

About Regiotape

Regiotape GmbH is an outstanding supplier of adhesive tape solutions with more than 28 years of experience. The company places particular emphasis on innovative competence, customer orientation and technological know-how. In addition to a broad product portfolio consisting of over 1,200 different adhesive tapes, adhesives and occupational safety products, the adhesive specialist also offers services such as plasma pretreatment.