Finishing and Cleaning Processes - Plasma Cleaning

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Plasma cleaning is the process of immersing a component in a vacuum chamber and either pure oxygen or pure argon gas is introduced and the gas molecules are excited by an electrical field which generates a plasma. The excited molecules bombard every exposed surface of the component. These molecule collisions remove contaminants from the surface and in some cases can physically 'etch' the surface slightly leaving a perfectly clean. contaminant free surface. The plasma cleaning process can also increase the surface energy and subsequently the wetting properties of the component surface.

Plasma cleaning is typically used prior to process requiring pristine surfaces or improved surface energy such as gluing, bonding, printing, wirebonding, fusion bonding, surface mounting and, soldering. Delicate components can be placed in a faraday cage to reduce 'soften' the effects of the plasma. Plasma cleaning typically takes less than 60 seconds to complete. Plasma cleaning can also be used to enable gluing of typically 'ungluable' materials such as polypropylene and polyethylene. PLasma cleaning accomplishes this by increasing the surface energy of the component.

While vacuum plasma is the most effective method, there are other atmospheric processes available such as atmospheric plasma and corona, or blow arc treatment. These processes work similarly in that a cloud of excited molecules is generated from one of more electrodes. The 'electron cloud' exists within a limited distance from the field generating electrodes, so the surface to be treated must be in close proximaty to the treatment head. These atmospheric plasma cleaning processes lend themselves very well to automated, production line processing. Typical applications are the treatment of films and components prior to printing or gluing.

Suppliers With This Capability

Action Tooling Services Pty Ltd   Bankstown NSW