University of Tennessee Research Foundation

John Lynch

Paul D Spence

Continuous-feed plasma treater systems are designed to treat continuous substrates, such as webs or films, by continuously feeding the substrates through an enclosure having a plasma discharge that alters the substrate's surface properties in some desirable fashion. According to the present invention, the enclosure has one or more electrode assemblies that generate plasma discharges at working-gas pressures ranging from moderate pressures (e.g., rough vacuums as low as about 10 Torr) to high pressures (e.g., about one Atmosphere). The electrode assemblies are driven by power supplies that excite the electrode assemblies in either an RF resonant excitation mode or a pulsed voltage excitation mode. By operating in the moderate, rough-vacuum pressure range, plasma treater systems of the present invention can be used (a) to treat substrates in an efficient cost-effective manner and (b) to produce treated substrates having superior surface properties as compared to those generated using prior-art systems, such as corona-type discharge systems operating at either low pressures (i.e., &lt;1 Torr) or high pressures.

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Laurel, MD, United States of America

John Lynch