Medical Ink Adhesion with Plasma Gas Pretreatment

Product Details

Plasma gas pretreatment is a solution for medical ink adhesion challenges associated with plastic substrates that have chemically inert and non-porous surfaces with low surface tension.

CI Medical maintains a water-cooled, March plasma gas chamber in-house. Five gases are involved in a proprietary surface treatment that temporarily modifies the molecular surfaces of such substrates as FEP and PTFE to increase the surface tension and promote permanent medical ink adhesion.

Below are photographs taken on CI Medical’s Mitutoyo Quickscope. On the left is a drop of ink on an untreated tube comprised of polypropylene. As you can see, there is low surface tension and the contact angle of the ink droplet is greater than 90 degrees. The photograph on the right shows the same tube following plasma gas surface treatment. Now, there is high surface tension and the contact angle of the ink droplet is less than 60 degrees, thus promoting superior medical ink adhesion.