Thin films metallizing plastics

There are many applications in which it is necessary to put a plastic coating on to paper or metal sheets and the extruder provides an ideal way of doing this. Normally a thin film of plastic is extruded from a slit die and is immediately brought into contact with the medium to be coated. The composite is then passed between rollers to ensure proper adhesion at the interface and to control the thickness of the coating (see Fig. 4.26). 

As with tensile tests, it is sometimes necessary to test dissimilar materials in shear or materials which cannot be easily fabricated into adherends. For these cases, ASTM D3164-73 describes the testing of a lap shear sandwich joint. The test specimens consist of two metal adherends, typically 0.064 inch thick aluminum, the structural adhesive, and a 0.010-inch thin film of plastic. The sandwich joint is shown in Figure 8. 

Whereas the traditional dimethyl siloxane fluids provide very poor lubrication for steel on steel and other common metals, thin films on glass reduce handling damage, small amounts in plastic composites bleed to the surface for self-lubrication, and they provide a superior lubricant for mbber surfaces. 

The use of nylon-11 for powder coatings or dry coatings (qv) has been developed in response to a growing concern for the environment (44) (see Coating PROCESSES, powder technology). Electrostatic deposition allows thin films to be appHed to metal substrates. Once the powder is appHed, it must be melted and coalesced into a continuous plastic film. Eorced draft or irradiant ovens are used for fusion, and because no polymerization or cross-linkage are required for curing, coated objects can be processed quickly and air-cooled (45). 

Fill Packing Specially designed baffling used to provide a large surface area for heat transfer. Two classes of materials are used splash bars of wood, metal transite or plastic and film pack (cellular fill). The splash type cools the water as the droplets bounce down a series of bars in the air stream film packing converts droplets into a thin film. 

There are many temporary protectives on the market and it would be impracticable to describe them individually. However, they may be classified according to the type of film formed, i.e. soft film, hard film and oil film the soft film may be further sub-divided into solvent-deposited thin film, hot-dip thick film, smearing and slushing types. All these types are removable with common petroleum solvents. There are also strippable types based on plastics (deposited by hot dipping or from solvents) or rubber latex (deposited from emulsions) these do not adhere to the metal surfaces and are removed by peeling. In addition there are volatile corrosion inhibitors (V.C.I.) consisting of substances, the vapour from which inhibits corrosion of ferrous metals. 

Figure 9. Procedure for the preparation of the test electrode for aqueous electrolytes (9 mol L 1 KOH or ZnCl2 solution). (1) the sample is mixed by shaking in a plastic container 20 mm (diam.) x 40 mm (height) (2) the mixture is made into a thin film by grinding with a pestle in a ceramic mortar (3) the metal screen is prepared (4) the three layers (A, B, C) are pressed between the steel blocks.

Electroplating is the electrolytic deposition of a thin film of metal on an object. The object to be electroplated (either metal or graphite-coated plastic) constitutes the cathode, and the electrolyte is an aqueous solution of a salt of the plating metal. Metal is deposited on the cathode by reduction of ions in the electrolyte solution. These cations are supplied either by the added salt or from oxidation of the anode, which is made of the plating metal (Fig. 12.16). 

TXRF is frequently used for contamination control and ultrasensitive chemical analysis, in particular in relation to materials used in semiconductor manufacturing [278,279], and metallic impurities on resin surfaces, as in PFA sheets [279,280], TXRF has been used by Simmross et al. [281] for the quantitative determination of cadmium in the four IRMM polyethylene reference materials (VDA-001 to 004). Microsamples (20-100 ig) from each reference material were transferred by hot pressing at 130 °C as 3 xm thin films straight on to quartz glass discs commonly used for TXRF analysis. The results obtained were quite satisfactory (Table 8.50). Other reports of the forensic application to plastic materials by TXRF have appeared [282], including a study of PE films by elemental analysis [283],... 

Deposition of thin films is used to change the surface properties of the base material, the substrate. For example, optical properties such as transmission or reflection of lenses and other glass products, can be adjusted by applying suitable coating layer systems. Metal coatings on plastic web produce conductive coatings for film capacitors. Polymer layers on metals enhance the corrosion resistance of the substrate. 

Finally, PSPs based on the OEP metal complexes in various cellulose derivative polymers also have been introduced. Cellulose derivative polymers such as ethyl cellulose, cellulose acetate etc., as shown in Fig. 9, also provide a mechanical strength to thin film. The oxygen permeability, diffusion constant, and solubility for oxygen for typical cellulose derivative polymers are listed in Table 1. Cellulose derivative polymer films with plasticizer tributyl phosphate (TBP) have large oxygen permeability. Cellulose acetate with TBP... 

Amorphous Silicon An alloy of silica and hydrogen, with a disordered, noncrystalline internal atomic arrangement, that can be deposited in thin layers (a few micrometers in thickness) by a number of deposition methods to produce thin-film photovoltaic cells on glass, metal or plastic substrates. 

---