Topic: Plasma treatment for innovative manufacturing processes. Atmospheric pressure plasma technology as cost-effective & environmentally-friendly surface technology.

The extensive potential of atmospheric pressure plasma technology

Openair® plasma treatment creates the prerequisites for innovative new manufacturing processes, material combinations and products. Working along side prestigious institutes, Plasmatreat has been engaged in intensive research into future application areas. Together with our customers and partners from industry, we are continuously developing new solutions and new industrial applications.

New material freedom
Openair® plasma technology makes it possible for industry to respond to continuously increasing demands on raw materials and materials efficiency, energy savings, and to avoid use of pollutants and chemicals. According to demea (source: Deutsche Materialeffizenz Agentur [German Materials Efficiency Agency]), material costs represent the greatest share of costs by far, at approx. 45.4%, even ahead of personnel costs.
Previously incompatible materials can be bonded to each other for the first time in industrial manufacturing by using Openair® plasma treatment. Non-polar plastics, for example, are selectively provided with the characteristics required for further processing of areas for painting and bonding. Alternative, more cost-effective, lighter or more stable materials or even recycled materials, for example, can be used. A new freedom in materials usage is coming into being.
New functionalities with nanocoating
Depending on the application, PlasmaPlus® nanocoating deposits a specific functional coating down into the microstructures of the material surface. This results in high efficiency layers that give the materials completely new properties. The creation of selectively functionalized surfaces means completely new performance for the products of tomorrow.
These applications extend from electrically-conductive coatings, to barrier coatings, to pharmaceutically active functional coating.
New environmentally-friendly processes and end products
Using dry Openair® plasma technology, many wet chemistry processes can be eliminated. Ultrafine cleaning with plasma already replaces entire washing processes, which makes drying that uses a lot of energy unnecessary.
High efficiency plasma activation makes the use of environmentally hazardous and health damaging bonding agents and primers unnecessary. The significant improvement in adhesion enables the use of alternative, often water-based VOC-free paint and adhesive systems.
All this means that Openair® plasma allows for new, cost-effective, and environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and products free of toxic substances.
Innovation with plasma technology: new applications for all areas of industry
The potential range of applications using Openair® plasma technology is inexhaustible. In many areas of industry, treatment with atmospheric pressure plasma is already firmly established. In other areas – say, in life sciences and new forms of energy, but also in aviation and aerospace – intensive research is being conducted on new application solutions. Today, there are already groundbreaking successes in protective coating of solar cells, the development of fuel cells, and innovative lightweight construction with carbon fiber materials. Initial tests in the treatment of human skin further demonstrate the extensive potential of plasma technology in future breakthroughs.