PLASMANICE

Atmospheric Plasmas for Nanoscale Industrial Surface Processing

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Atmospheric plasma techniques as processing methods have a number of advantages which include their ability to tailor the surface chemistry at the nanometre level. As such, the plasma treatments are energy efficient, reproducible and environmentally clean. In-line, continuous reel-to-reel processing equipment has been developed in the last 5 years. The wide scale application of this nano-processing technology in the pre-treatment of packaging materials in reel-to-reel processing has however been severely limited. One of the main reasons for this is the relatively slow processing velocity for coating depositions. In general, the velocities need to be increased by 2-5 fold in order to fully exploit the new nano-processing techniques. This proposal will address these issues in order to assist in the transfer of atmospheric plasma processing technology from the laboratory scale to industrial level in the packaging industry. Special attention will go out to the very promising combination with sol-gel technology. A method and equipment for in-line plasma deposition of high-barrier bio-based coatings to be applied in conjunction with extrusion coating at industrial line speeds will be developed. The approach will exploit sol-gel coatings applied on the substrates by plasma deposition. The substrates include paper, cardboard and plastic films. Renewable, biobased and biodegradable materials will be used as extrusion coatings. The project aims at replacement of fluoropolymer based grease barrier materials with sol-gel coated bioplastics and substitution of non-renewable barrier packaging films with renewables based materials in general. To achive these objectives, several leading European institutes and universities in atmospheric plasma deposition technology (VITO and TUE), sol-gel development (FhG-ISC and VTT) and extrusion coating and analytics development (TUT and JSI) together with a range of industrial participants are incorporated in the proposal.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

European Union (EU) funded scientists have improved coating technology for practical application at industrial level. They have developed a faster and more robust application of novel coatings that will have major impact on the packaging industry and the environment.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Most conventional packaging materials are oil-based (fossil fuel-based), produced with non-renewable resources that are not biodegradable adding to waste management problems. The goal of the EU funded project 'Atmospheric plasmas for nanoscale industrial surface processing' (PLASMANICE) was to develop biodegradable packaging made from renewable resources.

Atmospheric plasma deposition techniques are energy efficient, reproducible, capable of yielding tailored surface structure at the nano scale and environmentally friendly. However, the in-line, reel-to-reel industrial-scale processing methods have not been widely applied for pre-treatment of packaging materials largely due to slow processing speeds. The main objective of PLASMANICE was to develop equipment with faster atmospheric plasma deposition of functionalised nano-structured coatings on fibre and polymer based substrates. This would make it a viable industrial alternative to current packaging practices.

Sol-gel coating technology produces solid (gel phase) materials from small molecules in a colloidal suspension (sol). PLASMANICE partners successfully developed sol-gel coating processes to produce high-barrier inorganicorganic coatings at laboratory and industrial level. Development of a novel multi-jet plasma system enabled the achievement of industrially relevant line speeds.

Sol-gel coatings consisting of inorganic and organic and biodegradable materials were successfully applied to a variety of substrates including paper, paperboard and plastic films. The biodegradability of paperboards was not affected by the coating process. This gives the food packaging industry options that are environmentally friendly and cost effective.

In addition, all materials, solutions and processes were thoroughly evaluated using a variety of techniques for life-cycle assessment (LCA) and risk and safety analyses. An online spectroscopic monitoring method was developed for evaluating coating deposition characteristics. A relevant patent has been submitted.

PLASMANICE has significantly improved plasma coating deposition equipment for enhanced system robustness and treatment uniformity as well as industrially relevant line speeds. This technology has made biodegradable and renewable coatings for a variety of product packaging materials a more viable option.