HANNOVER, GERMANY - Surface technology will be one of the innovation drivers at the world's premier trade fair for the timber and woodworking industry which takes place in Hannover from the 6-10 May. “Plasma zero joints” and “plasma surface lamination” will be the main focus of the Plasmatreat stand.

The Düstec® plasma process developed jointly with furniture panel manufacturer Karl. W. Niemann GmbH & Co. KG for creating invisible edge joints has been further refined: Panels with very different thicknesses can now be pretreated with plasma in a stepless process.

Plasmatreat will be demonstrating this technology using part of an edge bander with an integrated plasma tool. Plasma technology lends itself to the preparation of invisible joints in both standard and high-speed operations. Running costs (including purchase, consumables and maintenance) are significantly lower than for conventional laser equipment. Fluctuating material properties, such as the material itself, the level of gloss, colour, reflectivity or thickness present no problems for the new plasma process.

In a live demonstration of surface lamination, Plasmatreat will use a test rig to show how large composite furniture panels can be pretreated before coating or laminating. Visitors will be given the opportunity to pretreat sections of small WPC (wood-plastic compound) or PP (polypropylene) panel sections to see for themselves the plasma effect – total wetability.

Whilst the surface energy of the plastic in the treated section significantly increases due to the plasma’s energizing effect, in the remaining untreated area it remains at its low, non-bondable starting level. This technology can be used to bond not only substrates previously thought to be incompatible; in most cases it is also possible to bond water-based paint and adhesive systems to highly adhesion-resistant surfaces such as non-polar plastics.

Source: Plasmatreat