HIDDEN PROBLEMS IN SURFACE TREATMENTS - I - PINHOLING

Enercon Industries Corporation, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, USA

Amelia Sparavigna, Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

The surface modification of polyolefin-based film surfaces is often necessary to improve surface
printability with water-base, solvent-base and UV/EB inks and coatings. Improvements in
metallization, lamination, and adhesive bonding strength is also critical in ensuring the
performance of packaging structures, particularly those which offer high oxygen and moisture
vapor transmission barriers. Corona discharge and air/gas flame treatments are capable of
producing the required level of surface energy to assure these bond strengths. However, the
surface properties provided by these techniques are not always optimal.

Fig.1 Plasma treatments of surfaces increase the surface energy and ink adhesion.

Corona discharge
A corona discharge is an electrical process that uses ionized air to increase the surface tension of
non-porous substrates. Normally, corona treating systems operate at an electrical voltage of ten
kilovolts. This voltage develops a current from an electrode with a high potential in air, by ionizing
it to create plasma around the electrode. Let us remember that plasma is an ionized gas
composed of molecules, positive ions and electrons. Corona discharge for web-based materials
usually involves two asymmetric electrodes: one highly curved and one of low curvature, the
grounded electrode. High curvature ensures a high potential gradient for the generation of plasma.
The discharge -initiating mechanism is the following: a neutral atom or molecule in the region
near the curved electrode is ionized by an exogenous environmental event to create a positive
cation and a free electron. The electric field then operates on these charged particles, separating
them and preventing their recombination. The electric field increases the kinetic energy of these
charged particles. As a result, energized electrons create further electron/positive-ion pairs by
collision with neutral atoms. The same separating process continues, ultimately creating an
electron avalanche. Ion species created in this avalanche are attracted to the ground electrode,
completing the circuit and sustaining the current flow to the surface of the material to be treated.

Therefore, corona discharge is basically a plasma in a transient, formative phase. With a simple
atmospheric pressure gap between the electrodes, a corona discharge is established as the
voltage between electrodes is increased and the breakdown field strength is exceeded. Near the
electrodes, where the concentration of traveling electrons is highest, a faint glow is visible, caused
by the recombination of ions and electrons. This glowing light removes energy from the ionized
gas at a high enough rate to prevent the formation of atmospheric plasma. At higher voltages or
smaller gaps, the energy put into the molecules by electron collisions exceeds the ability of the
corona discharge to dissipate the energy and plasma is formed.
Fig.2 A flexo-printed PET film observed with microscope. In the lower image the damage (pinholing)
produced by sparks.

In corona devices, the flow of cations and electrons tends to be confined to fairly narrow channels
and the discharge has a filamentary profile. Spark-like discharge reactions can occur if defects are
present on the surface of the ground roll or in the ground roll covering. At the point on the cathode
where the spark connects, a large amount of heat is generated by the impacting cations,
damaging the electrode surface. Electrons impacting the anode surface do not cause as much
damage, since they are thousands of times lighter than the cations and thus have much less
kinetic energy.

Pinholes
One particular surface property becoming increasingly important for food safety is high barrier. The
film must impede the passage of oxygen and moisture from environment into the package.
Usually, films are subjected to corona treatments to increase surface adhesion properties. In fact,
when low dielectric quality (typically low cost) corona discharge systems generate highly
filamentary discharge profiles which are enhanced by dirt and defects on the ground roll, the
resulting spark discharges can damage the substrates. The polymeric film which wraps the ground
roll approximately 180º, can become populated by microscopic pinholes. This can easily be seen
when the film is printed and observed under a microscope. In the low part of Fig.2, pinholes
appear as dark blue dots. In Fig. 3, the same region is examined with higher magnification of a
flexo-printed PET film. The texture of the ink on the film surface is different from the array of dots,
typical of rotogravure printing. The core of these blue dots has a size of approximately 10 microns.

Fig.3 The core of pinholes has a size ranging till 10 microns.

With these images obtained with microscopy, it is impossible to check the depth of damage
produced by spark discharges. However, a different investigation can be performed with a
confocal laser-scanning microscope (CLSM). This microscopy is a technique for obtaining high-
resolution optical images. The key feature of confocal microscopy is its ability to produce in-focus
images of thick specimens, in a process known as “optical sectioning”. Images are acquired point-
by-point and reconstructed with a computer, allowing three-dimensional reconstructions of
complex objects. The confocal microscope takes an optical cross-section in the bulk of the
observed sample, but it does not image objects that are above or below the focal plane. For this
reason, the confocal microscope can offer not only a high- resolution view of the surface, but also
cross sections of the film.

Fig.4 CLSM view of a pinhole in the PET film: (a) the surface and (b) and (c) cross-sections.

In Fig.4 we can see the region near a pinhole. From the high-resolution view (a), it is clear a
complex structure exists with a central hole (3 microns wide) and small satellite damage around it.
The two cross-sections (b) and (c) exemplify the depth of the structure. The images show the ink
film of PET substrate as a bright band of approximately 1 micron thickness. The homogeneous
PET substrate (80 microns thick) has no details evidenced by the microscope, except near the
pinholes. In (b), the damage is extended at least 6 microns in depth. Clearly, a spark discharge
from low dielectric quality corona systems is able to perforate a thin film and turn the substrate in a
highly defective one. Higher quality dielectric systems, such as dual dielectric universal or “high
definition” corona systems, and atmospheric plasma systems offer little to no potential for pin-
holing, respectively.
Avoiding defects with plasma
Recent trials confirm that an atmospheric plasma surface treater is able to improve printing on a
wide variety of materials, raising surface energy. The ink adhesion grows while leaving physical,
mechanical and barrier surface properties intact. In fact, atmospheric pressure plasma is a surface
modification technique characterized by a highly uniform and homogenous glow discharge with
almost no propensity for pinholing surfaces.
The APT process works on material surfaces in a way, which is similar to the vacuum plasma
treatment process. The excitation of gas molecules is accomplished by subjecting a gas at
atmospheric pressure delivered within an open station design, to an electric field at high
frequency. Free electrons gain energy from the imposed high frequency electric field, colliding with
neutral gas molecules and transferring energy, dissociating the molecules to form numerous
reactive species. It is the interaction of these excited species with solid surfaces placed in
opposition to the plasma that results in the chemical and physical modification of the material
surface. The effect on a given material is determined by the chemistry of the reactions between
the surface and the reactive species present in the plasma.
At the low exposure energies of surface treatments, the plasma surface interactions only change
the surface of the material; the effects are confined to a region only several molecular layers deep
and do not change the bulk properties of the substrate. Three surface processes simultaneously
alter substrates: ablation, crosslinking, and activation. In ablation, the bombardment of the polymer
surface by particles and radiation breaks the covalent bonds of the polymer backbone. The long
molecular components become shorter and as volatile oligomers or monomers vaporize off and
are swept away with exhaust. Crosslinking is done with an inert process gas (argon or helium).
The bond breaking occurs on the polymer surface: since there are no free-radical scavengers, it
can form a bond with a nearby free radical on a different chain (crosslink). Activation, as seen in
Figure 5, is a process where surface polymer functional groups are replaced with different atoms
or chemical groups from the plasma.

Figure 5. Surface activation of a polyolefin film by atmospheric plasma.

Plasma produces a microetching of the surface with a depth around 4-6 Å; that is, it does not
modify the mechanical bulk properties of the film but strongly increases surface adhesion.
Therefore, plasma does not burn pinholes in the film structure as corona treaters sometimes do if
spots of high moisture or some other extra conductive material are present on or beneath the film.
Since plasma is cleaning the surface, any further corona re-treatment will not be affected by the
presence of dirt.

Copyright Enercon Industries Corporation 2008.