Surface Treatments

Surface Treatments

A surface treatment is any method of treating a polymer to alter the surface, rendering it receptive to inks, adhesives, and coatings. Most commonly, plastic surfaces are modified by flame or surface treatment. These oxidize the surface slightly and provide the necessary polar sites that contribute to good bonding.

Surface Treatment

Purpose of Surface Treating

The purpose of surface treating is to improve the wet ability and adhesion characteristics of plastic substrates to inks and adhesives. Unlike the purely mechanical bond, as in the case of an ink penetrating into a porous surface like paper, plastic films or bottles will generally need some means of surface treatment to achieve acceptable chemical bonding with the ink or adhesive.

How Surface Treatment relates to plastic bottles

Surface treatment is a common method used to increase the surface energy of plastic by means of a high voltage electrical discharge; thus improving its adhesion characteristics for printing or label application. The Surface treatment is the modern version of “flame treating” a plastic bottle. Flame treating is the application of a flame to the bottle surface to remove contaminants that would prevent the screen print from adhering.

Lyons Blow Molding can treat all blow-molded bottles with flame or surface treatment.