Vacuum and atmospheric plasma technology

Plasmalex offers turnkey vacuum and atmospheric plasma solutions, delivering both chemistries and equipment, and customized solutions.

Advanced Surface Treatment Technologies at Plasmalex

Innovation is always a core aspect of our vision and operations. As a leading player in the industry, Plasmalex invests in research and development to implement advanced technologies. A century-long dedication to new ideas makes the company consistently deliver new coating compositions and the most progressive equipment systems, which become industry benchmarks and define its further development.

We are inspired to continue to develop surface treatment technology to make breakthroughs in the future. Our portfolio of advanced technologies includes

Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD)

At Plasmalex, we specialize in advanced PECVD technologies that enhance surface properties, improve material performance, and create highly functional coatings that meet specific industrial needs.

PECVD technology is used to achieve higher-quality coatings in the electronics, automotive, and aerospace industries. This process allows for procedures to be executed in a controlled manner producing quality, uniform thin coatings that increase the efficacy and durability of parts. The biggest advantages of this technology are improved performance, low-temperature deposition, and highly controlled film properties.

Atmospheric PECVD

Atmospheric PECVD is a modification of the standard PECVD process. The atmospheric PECVD solutions from Plasmalex provide diverse and high-performance depositing for multiple industries.

It enables us to provide benefits of both plasma-enhanced deposition with the convenience of working at atmospheric pressure, enabling the deposition of high-quality thin films for a wide range of industrial applications. It is cost-effective and scalable, increases energy efficiency, and is sustainable for the environment.

Biocompatible Coatings

Plasmalex offers advanced biocompatible coating solutions that enhance the performance, longevity, and safety of medical devices used in implants, diagnostics, and therapeutic applications.

We provide bio-compatible coatings for various medical applications and implantation. These coatings are intended to produce protective and durable structures that provide a high quality and safe performance inside the human body.

What is Plasma?

Plasma is considered the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gas. By adding energy matter can be transformed from solid to liquid, from liquid to gas and from gas to plasma.

At the plasma stage matter exists in the form of a gas of ions and free electrons and is highly electrically conductive. Although plasma is abundant in the universe, natural occurrences are relatively rare on earth. Lightning, static electricity and auroras are the primary sources of natural plasma.

Plasma can be generated in different ways. CPI, specializes in atmospheric plasma. Europlasma is specialized in low pressure (vacuum) plasma

Benefits of plasma technology for surface treatment

Plasma technology for surface treatment solutions offers several benefits:

High precision surface cleaning, activation and etching.
Very consistent nanocoating quality
The process penetrates in the molecular level of material.
A low process temperature, important for sensitive substrates and material handling
Low chemistry consumption
Environmentally friendly production process

Low environmental footprint

Vacuum versus atmospheric plasma

Unique Plasmalex offering

Customer tailored solutions for static as well as roll-to-roll applications
Conformal treatment of up to 2 m wide rolls
Unique industrial-scale test & job coating capabilities
Experienced team of plasma experts
Global service support network
Extensive portfolio of patents protecting machine design, processes and methods for
plasma deposition

We are unique in offering industrial-scale solutions for both static as well as reel to reel PECVD equipment & chemistry

30 years of experience allowed us to optimize machine & process designs for low pressure plasma applications
We have built an extensive track record of customized solutions
With multi-stage coating technology

Turnkey Solutions

Our solutions include the development of specific chemistry and contract
manufacturing services on our own equipment. In partnership with our sister
company Spoolex, we can provide integrated production lines that are fully turnkey.

Our integrated production lines include:

automatic loading and unloading
turret slitter/rewinders
automation of upstream and downstream processing

Plasmalex has the most advanced technology in the world for industrial size roll-to-roll atmospheric plasma applications:

We have a patented electrode/gas diffusor assembly which ensures:
- Control of the chemistry
- A homogeneous ultra-thin coating (1-10 nm) of over 2 m width
- Reduced electrode fouling
- No contamination of the product by plasma generated powders

Industrialized atmospheric plasma applications come with some challenges that we overcome

Inerting (O₂and H₂O)
Gas and monomers handling
Power management
- To avoid the risk of poor coating quality
- Process industrialization over width and length
Homogeneity over wide width and length

Therefore we have an important focus on R&D with:

Continuous Research on the interaction of the different process parameters
- There are up to 89 interconnected plasma parameters to control (classically 20-40)
- We have a continuous process to control the results so that a stable treatment quality is guaranteed
Continuous Research on various generator technology.
- We continuously test different technologies to select the optimal technology for each application
We focus on chemistry in the plasma as a sustainable answer to the traditional wet chemistry solutions