Letter 32018

PVD plastic without chrome? [Michigan]  

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Is it possible to PVD a hard decorative finish on a plastic substrate without chrome as the base?

Joe Phillips
Alsons Corp. - Hillsdale, MI, USA

This is the holy grail that PVD coaters seek. It is possible to coat directly to ABS, but there are issues. First, the coating will be only as good as the finish, so the L value will be low directly on plastic (a Cu-Ni-Cr finish levels the imperfections of the plastic surface, increasing the L value for max brilliance). Also, the cost of sputtering the bond layer and applying the decorative PVD chemistry for the final finish is more costly than the plating-PVD route. There is a scheme where an organic finish is put down, followed by PVD, and then sealed by an organic finish. I believe this is the general scheme followed by a Goodrich Technology process called Permastar that you may want to search on the web.

Joe Kubinski
Sulzer Metaplas Inc. - Woonsocket, RI, USA

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