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Cover Story Nearly 30 years of Plasma innovation


H


eadquartered in Oudenaarde, Belgium, Europlasma has been pioneering in low pressure vacuum plasma applications for nearly 30 years. Since the late 90s the company has been producing roll to roll vacuum coaters for the textile, non-woven and film markets.


POWER OF PLASMA


Plasma can be considered the fourth state of matter, after solid, liquid and gas. Although not entirely correct you can imagine a plasma to be an ionised gas that conducts electricity. Naturally, plasmas mainly occur at very high temperatures like the sun’s corona (the northern lights are a plasma) or sometimes when lightning strikes. Europlasma is a world-leading company in using low pressure chambers to create plasmas at ambient temperature. Europlasma uses this technology to change the surface tension of all kinds of 3d objects and has developed proprietary roll to roll machines that can use the power of plasma on rolls of fabric up to 2.5m in width.


APPLICATIONS


The first application for low pressure plasma was surface activation, where, using a process gas (usually oxygen), Europlasma changes the surface tension of a material to improve adhesion. The main use on rolls is to eliminate the need for any type of primer and significantly reduce the amount of dye or paint needed for coating afterwards. This can reduce the costs associated with textile finishing significantly.


Technological advances mean that, next to surface activation, Europlasma is capable of also applying several coating directly


in the vacuum chamber using a range of chemistries Europlasma developed in house.


EUROPLASMA SPECIALISES IN THREE MAIN TYPES OF COATINGS: 1. Hydrophobic or water repellent coatings: These increase the water repellency of a fabric. Depending on the fabric very high water contact angles (over 120°) can be achieved and a water column of 5000 mm and perfect breathability. Europlasma has developed a fully fluor or any other halogen free solution. Coupled with the process being fully dry this is the most environmentally sustainable DWR coating on the market. 2. Oleophobic coating: Similarly to hydrophobic coatings, oleophobic coatings add oil repellency to a fabric. The most common application is in high end filter media where oil repellency is crucial to filter out tiny particles like viruses and bacteria. During the Covid 19 pandemic Europlasma technology has bene used to make ultra- high efficiency face masks. 3. Hydrophilic coatings: The exact opposite of hydrophobic coatings these hydrophilic coatings improve the wettability and/ or the absorption of fabric. Europlasma highly hydrophilic coating is widely used in medical applications.


SUSTAINABLE COATINGS Europlasma technology uses no water at all and, thanks to proprietary scrubber technology, there is no exhaust pollution or VOC to worry about either. Nano coatings also require no heating curing or any other post treatment.


Europlasma nano- coatings are also extremely thin, between 20 and 100 nanometres only. This is less than 1000nd of a human hair! This means chemical consumption is much lower than in any traditional form of coating.


COLLABORATION WITH SPOOLEX Since 2018, Europlasma has been part of the same group as Spoolex (spoolex. com), a household name in the converting industry with its Callemard, Découp+ and Roll Concept brands. Its industrial know- how and state-of-the-art engineering centre made spoolex the ideal partner for our large industrial machine building.


Thanks to its help, we managed to build machines up to 2.5m in width and, together, we are working on our next generation of coaters that will be faster and have even more automation options for continuous operations in a vacuum.


u europlasma.be


8


May 2021


convertermag.com


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