PlasmaGreen

Leading plasma applications and innovative measurement technology in plastics production

leveraging power and versatility of cold plasma

Cold or non-thermal plasmas are an energy efficient and tunable way to induce chemical reactions at surfaces and interfaces or in gases. The dielectric barrier discharges PlasmaGreen applies have an enormous number of applications in science and technology ranging from surface activation of plastic foils to facilitate printing or bonding to medical applications in desinfection or wound care.

innovative analytical tools for plastics production

Process-integrated quality control and plant control are becoming increasingly important in industrial production. More parameters need to be recorded in order to be able to achieve this. Measurement of temperature and pressure of the roll coolant at the inlet and outlet, precise measurement of the film thickness at each point of a foil during operation and measurement of the degree of roll contamination are some examples.

Products

TouchlessClean

The surfaces of rollers used in the production of plastic foils are contaminated during production resulting in rejects and substantial downtimes for cleaning. Cleaning roller surfaces ist mostly done manually. In cooperation with Derichs GmbH PlasmaGreen offers TouchlessClean (TLC), a new inline-capable plasma cleaning process, which continuously cleans the roller surface during production, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention and thus downtimes.

Cleaning of a chill roll during PP production is visble here.

Distributor: Derichs GmbH, Viersen

ED Gateway

The ED Gateway receives the data for pressure and temperature of the coolants in rolls sent by Derichs ED sensors. These data are displayed, permanently recorded and monitored. For this purpose, limit ranges for pressure and temperature can be defined at the inlet and outlet. All data is forwarded to a plant control system in analog or digital form. More...

Partner: Derichs GmbH, Viersen

Coming soon

Soot removal of engine exhaust gases (ESR)

Soot particles in exhaust gases from marine diesel engines are a problematic pollutant and contribute to a considerable extent to air pollution. In a joint project with Weihe GmbH a cold plasma based exhaust gas cleaning technology for marine diesel engines is developed. Compared to conventional solutions like thermal post-combustion, the plasma based approach is characterized by significantly lower energy and space requirements. It requires little maintenance and can be retrofitted to existing engines.

Partner: Weihe GmbH, Altenholz

Purification of industrial exhaust gases (EGC)

Waste gases from industrial processes very often contain hazardous components. During the production of W for example, ammonia appears, the removal of which by means of sulfuric acid is a complex process. In many cases, our plasma technology is able to convert the hazardous gas components into non-hazardous gas components. A large number of organic and anorganic molecules can be handled.

Controlling foil thickness during production

The thickness of foils during production is one of the essential characteristics of any product. The settings of the extruders are driven by these measured values. The measurement of film thickness is therefore an indispensable measuring task. In contrast to the traversing measuring methods available so far, the PlasmaGreen measuring device will permanently measure, display and monitor all points on the film.

Company

PlasmaGreen was founded by scientists and engineers at Clausthal University of Technology in 2018. We were fascinated by the power and versatility of cold plasmas. The next step was to turn our scientific results into energy- and cost-efficient products serving our customers. Two years ago we were awarded with and funded by the EXIST program. After starting off with plasma cleaning of rolls, we learned from the community about other problems existing around processing of plastic foils and started to adress them. R&D and production are located in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany.

Awards

EXIST funding awarded

ICE Award 2019