Oxford Advanced Surfaces - Use of Onto™ Highly Reactive Chemistry to facilitate the manufacture of products containing engineered plastics and polymers

工程塑料和聚合物正日益在多个市场上被用作产品部件，并正在取代传统材料，如木材和金属，因为它们结合了许多有利的特性，如成形性、强度和重量。然而，尽管这些材料具有有用的体积特性，但许多材料固有的表面特性导致了制造和最终使用的挑战，如与其他材料的粘合能力较差。On to™高活性化学通过允许以各种形式对各种材料进行表面改性，导致材料表面被赋予新的功能，为这些制造问题提供了解决方案。虽然On™能够与许多类型的材料反应，但我们相信它在替代技术效率较低的聚合物方面具有最大的商业潜力。我们选择专注于该技术的三个关键应用，即表面能/润湿、促进附着力和与涂层的直接附着力。所有这三个都有助于解决我们知道市场上存在的表面界面问题，例如，层间分层僵化的电子设备。然而，这些应用的潜力是巨大的，因为工程聚合物被用于如此多的产品中。必须首先进行广泛的市场研究，以了解这些材料被用于哪些市场，以及它们的使用在哪里主要受到其表面性质的限制。从这个广泛的概述中，有必要详细地关注特定的市场，以便确定On™为产品增值的最大机会。这项技术可能会对社会和环境产生巨大影响，因为它可以促进产品创新，改善可再生能源和医疗应用等领域的现有产品性能。

Engineered plastics and polymers are becoming increasingly exploited in multiple markets foruse as product parts and are replacing traditional materials such as wood and metal becausethey combine many advantageous properties such as formability, strength and light weight.However, whilst having useful bulk properties, many of these materials have inherent surfaceproperties that lead to manufacturing and end use challenges, such as poor ability to adhere toother materials.Onto™ highly reactive chemistry provides a solution to these manufacturing problems byallowing surface modification of a wide range of materials in various forms, resulting in newfunctionality being imparted at the material surface. Whilst Onto™ is capable of reacting withmany types of materials, we believe that it has the greatest commercial potential for polymersfor which alternative technologies are less effective. We are choosing to concentrate on threekey applications of the technology, namely surface energy/wetting, adhesion promotion anddirect adhesion to a coating. All three contribute to solving surface interface problems forwhich we are aware that problems exist in the market, for example interlayer delamination inflexible electronic devices. However, the potential for these applications is vast becauseengineered polymers are utilised in so many products.A wide ranging market study must first be carried out to understand in which markets thesematerials are used, and to understand where their use is limited mainly by their surfaceproperties. From this broad overview, it will then be necessary to focus on specific markets indetail in order to identify the greatest opportunity for Onto™ to add value to products. Thetechnology could have a large impact socially and environmentally because it could facilitateproduct innovation and improve existing product performance in fields such as renewableenergy and medical applications.