Medical practitioners are increasingly utilizing plastics in their devices and instruments due to the material’s versatility, quick processing, light weight, bio-compatibility, sterility and price point. Plasma and corona surface treatment are an ideal fit for medical, pharmaceutical, and labware manufacturing. Once surface treated the value of inexpensive polymer parts greatly increases due to now becoming specialized, functionalized, engineered components. Plasma and corona surface treatment produce reliable, durable, and uniform results through electrical discharge that heighten energy on the surface of polymers and other substrates to increase their capacity for adhesion and bonding.
Read more
What Can Plasma Surface Treatment and Corona Surface Treatment
Achieve in Medical Device Manufacturing?
Medical device manufacturers use plasma and corona surface treatment for various reasons. First, surface modification improves adhesive, coating, and ink bonds with a substrate by chemically changing substrates from being hydrophobic to hydrophilic. Manufacturers utilize corona and plasma treatment to solve complex challenges, especially plastic material applications that present incompatibility issues for bonding. Other specialized applications include applying protective coatings that either draw or fend off fluids and improved cell adhesion in laboratory containers made from polycarbonate and polystyrene.
What Are Some Useful Applications for Plasma and Corona Treatment in the Medical Industry?
Within medical manufacturing, the range of uses for plastics is vast. As a result, corona and plasma technology is regularly used for improving the bonding power of ink, adhesives and cell culture growth. Surface treated items include syringes, tubing, pipettes, bottles, flasks, vials, multi-well plates, Eppendorf tubes, culture plates, and other polymer labware items manufactured for research, drug discovery, and diagnostics testing. Surface treatment is employed for all types of parts and components for medical devices and pharma packaging.
Plasma treatment can assist the bonding of dissimilar materials. This can involve bonding metal to plastic, silicon to glass, polymers to other polymers, biological content to microtiter plates, and even bonding to polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Whether bonding metal to plastic, silicon to glass, polymers to other polymers or biological content to microtiter plates, corona and plasma can be used to promote adhesion.
Adhesion promotion is achieved by increasing the substrates surface-free energy creating a dramatic improvement in bonding. In some cases, up to a 50x increase in bond strength can be achieved.
What Are the Benefits of Using Plasma and Corona Surface Treatments?
Plasma and corona surface treatment generate numerous benefits for medical, pharmaceutical, and laboratory components. These treatments offer:
High-Quality Results
Businesses in these sectors all require reliable, high-quality products for critical applications, making plasma and corona treatment ideal. As these surface treatments ensure consistent and superior wettability, the resulting products will have greater capabilities for adhesion—even for the most challenging of plastic substrates—as well as overall product performance. The secure bonding with media such as ink, paint, and adhesives is an important benefit for medical devices, changing a two-dollar plastic part into a fifty-dollar component. 3DT specializes in developing these processes and systems for customer’s unique applications.
Speed
Both plasma and corona surface treatment are typically fast, usually taking little time at all, depending on the process and materials. Treating can take just seconds to complete, with the potential for treating up to 1,000 parts per hour. As an added benefit, these surface treatments do not necessitate primers, curing or drying; cutting those stages from the production timeline for greater time savings.
Uniformity
These processes are an excellent solution for products that need treating on the whole of their surface, even hard-to-reach nooks, crannies, and drill holes. As such, they are ideal for 3D components with complex configurations, providing consistent, reliable pretreatment. Processes utilize highly repeatable, recipe-based programming.
Cost-Effectiveness
Plasma and corona surface treatments have opened up additional opportunities for medical manufacturers. To start, the speed of these treatments plays a part in increased savings. They can also reduce operating costs by allowing companies to adopt the use of alternative materials that are less expensive than typical base substrates, as well as chemicals, primers, and adhesives. This also leads to less scrap and waste generated which equates to greater savings as well.
Environmental Friendliness
Surface treatment improves the adhesion of environmentally-friendly, solvent-free, water-based primers, adhesives, and inks, eliminating the use of chemical baths and primers. Plasma surface treatment, unlike chemical processes such as priming or etching, are clean processes that do not produce environmentally harmful waste. Instead, they give off minor amounts of non-hazardous gasses only. Corona processes generate ozone, but using an ozone filter eliminates the issue. Additionally, corona and plasma do not use an open flame, and are much safer for operators.
What Medical Devices Are Treated with Plasma Surface Treatment or Corona Surface Treatment?
Plasma and corona surface treatments are applicable for:
- Ampules, vials
- Catheter tubing
- Implants
- Insulin pens
- Lenses
- Medication bottles
- Needle hubs
- Ostomy bags
- Petri dishes
- Labware: flasks, multi-well plates
- Surgical instruments
- Syringes
3DT is Your Source for Corona & Plasma Technology
Knowledgebase/FAQ
FAQ – all you need to know about surface treatment
Sustainability is no longer a luxury. It’s no longer a nice-to-have. In the medical industry, automotive industry and other quality-dependent sectors, the demands for…..
In the medical industry, the success of many processes and applications depend on the ability of various materials to adhere to each other.
In the medical industry, adhesion and coating is definitely a challenge on low surface-energy materials like polystyrene, polypropylene, polyethylene.
Surface treatment plays a crucial role in the medical device industry, particularly when it comes to enhancing adhesion properties and improving surface energy.
What is surface energy, and why is it important to have high surface energy when bonding prints on surfaces?
Vacuum plasma is a suitable technology when your product or part requires treatment to all surfaces. Even 3D parts with..
Surface energy of solid materials and the need for surface treatment of polymers. It is often necessary to bond plastic materials to metals or other plastic materials, or…
Etching is the process of removing a material from the surface of another material. There are several methods of plasma treatment, but two main types…
Cleaning is required for the removal of contaminants from surfaces before they can be used in the manufacturing process. Plasma cleaning can…
Cleaning plasma is used on a number of materials for cleaning the surfaces and readying them for further processing i.e. painting, coating, and encapsulation…
One way to modify the physical and chemical properties of metals is plasma etching. The technique is particularly popular in the digital world for the…
Surface treatment of plastic is not an uncommon procedure in the industrial world. Innumerable plastics are treated each and every day for improved wettability…
Until the ’s, matter was thought to exist in only three forms i.e. solid, liquid, and gas. But all that changed when a Danish engineer discovered plasma…
Naen contains other products and information you need, so please check it out.
Corona treatment was introduced in the industrial sector in the year . An engineer in Denmark was requested to find a secure way for apposite printing…
Vacuum plasma is a suitable technology when your product or part requires treatment to all surfaces. Even 3D parts…
Tantec Plasma Treatment equipment has many different applications. As an example, in the medical industry, we have solved many problems with our machines…
To improve the adhesion of polymers, a needs-oriented surface pretreatment can be performed using a plasma process….
Treatment of metals can be of essential importance in many industries. It is not a new proces, but a proces that dates back as early as…
Dry etching is a critical process in battery manufacturing where material is selectively removed from surfaces. In EV battery production, etching helps prepare electrode surfaces for optimal performance.
The results of plasma treatment of surfaces are present in your everyday life, even if you aren’t aware of it. Just look at the keyboard on your computer – chances are…
In this article, we will discover the fundamental principles and applications of reactive ion etching and how it contrasts with other etching techniques like plasma etching.
One of the most frequently asked questions at Tantec is: “What is the difference between corona and plasma treatment?” This article aims….
Tantec’s advanced corona treatment technology enhances plastic adhesion, durability, and print quality across industries. Discover how we deliver tailored surface treatment solutions for packaging, automotive, medical devices, and more.
What is corona surface treatment?
Corona treatment is a high-frequency, high-voltage electrical discharge. The discharge is generated between an electrode and a counter electrode. The corona discharge has such a powerful impact on the substance surface that the molecular structure changes in a way that improves the surface wettability.
Is it possible to treat metal surfaces?
Metal surfaces can be treated by using special insulated electrodes. Treating metal surfaces is primarily a surface cleaning issue.
How can the improved adhesion be measured?
The improved adhesion strength can easily be measured either through contact-angle measurement or by using dyne inks.
What does dyne level / mN/m mean?
The dyne level reflects the surface wettability – the higher the dyne level, the better the wettability/adhesion.
Read more about Dyne test.
Can Tantec equipment be built into my existing production line or is it always a batch process?
In most cases, the plasma and corona equipment is integrated into the existing production equipment.
Does line speed affect the results of corona treatment?
Yes, the higher line speed, or the higher throughput of products, the more Corona power is required. Tantec can easily calculate the need of treatment power, and specify the number of electrodes and size of Corona Generator.
Is any extraction required from a Corona treater?
Yes, ozone is formed as a by-product of the corona-discharge process. It is an allotropic form of oxygen, and exists at room temperature as an unstable gas with a sharp, characteristic odour. It can usually be detected by its odour at concentrations as low as 0.01 to 0.05 ppm, which are below the permissible exposure level of 0.1ppm. Tantec supply a standard range of ozone filters with flow sensors to control extraction air flows, and Tantec guarantee the ozone level in the working area is not exceeding the permissible exposure level.
Does Tantec offer after-sale services?
Tantec offer start-up of equipment and training of operator personnel at the customers site, and Tantec technicians are available for annual maintenance service on supplied equipment.
In this section you will find technical articles about our plasma and corona technology.
We understand, that it can be difficult to understand what plasma and corona exactly are, how the technology works, and to which materials it can apply. The Tantec knowledgebase category, (or Frequently Asked Questions/FAQ), contains technical articles about the technology and the processes.
Many of the articles we present here, are a result of the questions we receive through our website or from our clients around the world, who we meet at exhibitions or at our technology seminars. A question we often encounter, is how plasma treatment can work as an etchant. Please read more about that in our article about Plasma etching.
We hope you find answers to your questions here. If not, do not hesitate to contact us, and we will provide you with an answer as soon as possible.
Reasons to surface treat materials
It is often necessary to bond plastic materials to metals or other plastic materials or simply print on a plastic surface. In order to successfully accomplish this, the liquid adhesive, or ink should be able to wet the surface of the material. Wettability depends on one specific property of the surface: Surface Energy, often referred to as Surface Tension.
For more information, please visit Corona Plasma Treatment Machine.
Comments
Please Join Us to post.
0