Cold Plasma
Clean surfaces,
ready surfaces.
Precision cleaning and surface activation: how it
works, how it is measured, where it is used.
APPLICATION NOTE NA-01
WHY READ THIS NOTE
Clean is not enough
Every surface carries its own history. A copper sheet keeps the thin film of oil from machining, a prosthesis the residues of its production process, a polypropylene bumper its stubbornly hydrophobic nature. To the naked eye they are clean. To an adhesive, a paint or a coating they are anything but.
This is where the most insidious defects begin: paint that lifts, bonds that fail, coatings that do not cover, colors that shift. The cause is almost always invisible: a few nanometers of contaminant, or a chemically “closed” surface that refuses to be wetted.
Cold plasma solves both problems in a single process, at low temperature and without solvents. It removes what cannot be seen and prepares the surface for whatever comes next.
This note explains what plasma is, how it works, how its effect is measured, and the results obtained in our laboratory on metals, polymers and medical devices.
Two effects, one technology.
Cleaning: plasma reacts chemically with organic contaminants, turning their carbon into gas, and the vacuum pump carries them away.
Activation: plasma changes the chemistry of the outermost layers of the material, creating polar groups that increase wettability and adhesion without altering its bulk properties.
Download the complete Application Note in PDF format to learn about:
- Two Opponents of Accession
- The Fourth State of Matter
- The Right Gas for Every Surface
- Seeing the Invisible
- Test 1. A sheet of copper with oil contamination
- Test 2. An orthopedic prosthesis
- Experiment 3. Polypropylene Learns to Get Wet
- Test 4. An LDPE cap that won’t come off
- And much more
