Flame treatment technology for converting industry, 2014 PLACE Conference

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Flame treatment is a surface treatment technique used to modify the surface chemistry of several substrates (mainly polymers), making them polar, improving their surface energy and making them wettable, so ready for following coating/laminating steps. Laminar flame (i.e. a flame produced by an air to gas flow that is laminar in nature) is produced, through a radicalic reaction, highly exothermic, after combustion of air and a combustible (generally natural gas, propane or LPG). Final reaction products are just water and carbon dioxide, but, during the process, a radical pool is formed, constituted by OH, HO2, H2O2 and O2 species, as well as ions and electrons, that, reacting with the polymer surface, produce several oxidized chemical species ("functional groups") on the surface itself, mainly hydroxil (alcohol; C-(O,N) or C-O) and carbonyl (ketone; C-O) groups, that promote surface adhesion, thanks, mainly, to bridge effect produced by the oxygen, between the polymer substrate surface and the layer to be coupled with it.