A cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to improve the adhesion of plastic car mouldings.
More bits, of more and more cars, are being made with plastic. It makes the cars lighter so they use less fuel. The trouble is making those bits of the plastic stick together. Up till now, environmentally unfriendly solvents have been used to glue side body moldings, for example, onto Commodores.
But a more environmentally friendly and cost-effective method was needed, so Australia’s science agency, CSIRO came up with an answer. It’s a process called SICOR that prepares the surface, making it easier for two plastic pieces to bond together.
In a split of a second you implant into the surface of the plastic an area of millions of chemical hooks.
First the surface is oxidized, then it is sprayed with an adhesion promoter.
In the factory, robots like this one can be programmed to apply the SICOR treatment to the exact shape of the car body part. Then, the processed plastic can be stored until it’s needed.
SICOR allows you to alter the surface of plastic so that you can easily bond, paint, print onto plastic and it does have the affect of becoming a chemical velcroe between the plastic metal and what ever is on top of it.
On this production line, at the Socobell car part company in Melbourne, thousands of car pieces are churned out each week, using the new SICOR process.
The introduction of SICOR has allowed us to go to a cheaper material, which is quite beneficial to the cost down to the customer, and also give a superior adhesion to paint onto that surface which once was never possible.
It’s hoped that SICOR, will eventually be used in a variety of other automotive applications and in areas as diverse as packaging and building.
