Surface roughening of plastic materials Research and Development Department of Company O, specialized in plastic processing
Avoid damage during plastic roughening
Hydrophilic particles form micro-texture
Company O, which performs functional processing on plastic parts, films, and fibers, received a request to perform surface roughening, which creates minute irregularities on the surface of a plastic part.
Although the process itself is possible, there are many difficulties in forming minute irregularities on the surface of materials such as film and fiber.
Challenges
When surface roughening is applied to plastic materials, the optimal fine irregularities cannot be obtained...
By roughening the surface of films, fibers, etc., by forming minute irregularities, various functional improvements can be expected. For example, in the case of films, it improves slipperiness by reducing the contact area, improves release properties, and improves tack-free properties. In the case of fibers, it also improves texture and static charge control.
However, there are challenges in forming minute irregularities on the surface of plastic materials. There are various processing methods available, such as plasma treatment, blasting, etching, and molding using a mold.
However, although processing is possible, it often results in significant damage to the material and the optimum fine irregularities cannot be obtained.
We also investigated a technology to create minute irregularities on the surface using commercially available fine particles, but this required high-temperature heating and strong acid treatment, which also posed the problem of causing significant damage to the material.
The R&D department tried various surface roughening techniques for the material, but the results were far from what they had expected.
Key Challenges
Roughening the surface of plastic materials often causes significant damage to the material.
When processing, there are cases where the optimum fine irregularities cannot be obtained.