Bonding of plastics and other base materials like metal, glass and carbon has a huge, but often overseen impact on our daily lives. We find such bonding in numerous objects and devices (e.g. medical devices, cars, electronics) and also in industrial processes such as production lines of food and beverage, offshore industry etc. Among the most noticeable examples is the increased use of lightweight components in vehicles, due to rising environmental regulations. In the food and nutrition industry, plastic, rubber and metal are used as the key component in processing equipment, where strict hygienic standards requires high-performing adhesive to secure safe and air- and water-tight bonding of the components without leaching of any harmful chemicals.
The fundamental problem facing any applications containing plastic-metal bonding is that plastics and metals have inherently different chemical properties and most often very dissimilar surface energies. Achieving strong bonding between dissimilar material groups represent a major challenge. The available adhesives typically bond strongly to just one of the component materials but not to the other. In addition, adhesives often fail under extreme conditions or do not give the desired bonding properties, like tightness and lifetime. Or they are based on harmful chemicals that could potentially leach out.
RadiSurf’s AdheSurf project solves this key market gap. Our revolutionary technology, that we will bring into commercialization, utilizes polymer brushes to join metals and plastics together. Our unique nanoscale bonding technology creates a tight direct chemical bond between metal and plastic components without any harmful chemicals and potential environmental risks.
RadiSurf’s disruptive adhesion technology, works by first applying a nanometer-thin initiator, or activator, layer on the base material surface to create chemical bonds directly to surface molecules. Followed by growing polymer brushes from this activator layer through a groundbreaking polymerization technique (patent pending). Unprecedented, this entire process can be completed within 30 minutes under regular atmospheric conditions – and for the first time accessing this type of technology for economically viable and scalable production. The finished, coated metal components are remarkably stable, and can be stored for months before final assembly with the plastic part. While the entire process is expected to be easily integrated into a customer’s existing production line, the technology also allows for the option to separate the coating and the assembly processes. This is another advantage over traditional primers and adhesives, where the assembly needs to be executed within minutes or seconds after the adhesive is applied. Combined, this high-performance bonding technology based on disruptive use of polymer brushes has ideal capabilities for scaled-up commercial use.
