Improvement of toner printing on polyethylene terephthalate based transparency sheets using atmospheric plasma

Abstract

The application of atmospheric plasma to improve printability on transparency sheets is presented in this paper. Printing on polymer substrates like Polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Poly propylene have become a challenge as the adhesion of ink, dyes or toner onto these surfaces are poor as they have low polar functional group densities on the surface. PET based transparency sheets were plasma treated using atmospheric plasma. The degree of surface modification was investigated by using contact angle measurements of water on the surface. The effect of plasma treatment on the printing quality was measured by image analysis techniques and tape tests. It was observed that there was a significant improvement in toner fixing after plasma treatments.