Abstract
Industrial sectors such automotive, aerospace, packaging, electrical and electronic equipment, medical and others are very interested in the applications and manufacture of laminated materials with film-film or film-foam structures. Polymer films present many advantages in terms of material features. They act as isolation against chemical agents, they provide a bright surface finish, soft-touch, easy ability to be adapted to complex shapes, light, economical, etc. Because of the chemical nature of polymeric film, the industrial manufacturing process of these laminates requires pretreatment of the same in order to increase their inherently low adhesive properties and to improve its processability. In this work, the low density polyethylene (LDPE) film surface has been modified in order to optimize the adhesive properties to be joined with polyolefin foam for technological applications. A corona plasma treatment in continuous working under different powers in the range between 200 and 600 W, and with different film speeds over between 5 and 20 m min-1 was applied to LDPE films. he wettability of the surface has been quantified by contact angle measurements which calculate the surface free energy. The mechanical characterization of adhesive bonding has been done by the T-peel test in order to quantify the optimal resistant response of this kind of laminates composites in technological applications. Obtained results show that plasma treatment powers crown between 400 and 600W are optimal in order to improve the wettability, while the film speed rate does not significantly affect. Thus, the wettability of the adhesive is improved and consequently the bond strength film-foam is increased.
Keywords: plasma corona, laminated film/foam, hot-melt adhesive