Injection Moulding Production Technology for Multi-Functional Nano-structured Plastic Components enabled by Nano Imprint Lithography

Transcription

1 Injection Moulding Production Technology for Multi-Functional Nano-structured Plastic Components enabled by Nano Imprint Lithography

2

3 Content 1 About Plast4Future 2 Challenges 3 European added value 4 Partners 5 Contact

4 1 About Plast4Future The Plast-4-Future (P4F) project is developing technology for upgrading and advancing injection moulding, a traditional manufacturing technique, by integration of state-of-the-art nanotechnology. The technology developed allows for performing nanoimprint lithography on the injection moulding tool cavity surface followed by pattern transfer by etching. In this manner plastic objects can be manufactured directly in the injection moulding process with micro- and nano-patterns in the surface. Combining this with state-of-the art nanotechnology unique functionalities can be realized. In P4F we focus on development of two types of functionalities for direct integration in the injection moulding process. First are optical effects (colour, where colour effects found in butterflies and iridescent colours from beetles inspire us and antireflection, which are known from the moth eye). Secondly, our focus is to create superhydrophobic and self-cleaning surfaces from surface structures. When fully developed, the P4F technology will add value to many aspects of the value chain as well as to society. In P4F we find inspiration in nature, but we do not force ourselves to mimic nature. Based on state-of-the-art and deep knowledge of physics and by using simulation tools we find structures that give similar effect to those structures found in nature, but with structures more easily to manufacture in a controlled manner. 3

5 Environmental impact: Realization of functionalities directly in the plastic product surface without the use of chemistry, vacuum processes and additional process steps is a huge energy and carbondioxide saver. As a matter of fact, Lego, one of the P4F partners, are today manufacturing Lego parts in Europe and shipping these to Asia for decoration. Thereafter, the Lego parts are being shipped back to Europe. This modus operandi can be completely changed by fully decoration directly in the injection moulding process - enabled by P4F technology and consequently saving the environment for massive CO2 emission. Anti-reflection, super-hydrophobicity and colour decoration of plastics is today achieved by adding chemical components to the plastics (every one know the smell of a new car, and the dyes used to colour various objects) or by energy consuming post processing such as vacuum based deposition techniques. Through integration of the P4F technology, many of these chemical components and energy intensive post processes can be replaced through surface patterning. The surface patterning is texture only and nothing is added from a life cycle assessment point of view, i.e. no added chemistry, no added CO2 emission and no added process steps. Social impact: In Europe more than 50,000 companies are working within the plastics industry, employing more than 1.6 million people and generating annual turnover exceeding EUR 300 billions. It is of paramount importance to Europe to develop and mature new technologies to fight against the trend over the past years regarding allocation of injection moulding production to low-income countries in Asia. Impact on injection moulding value chain: P4F develops its solutions to fit with all links in the value chain. It is being ensured that the micro- and nanostructured injection moulding tools last as long as industrially used injection moulding tools used today and it uses the same materials. This will ensure easy integration in the manufacturing process and thereby easy integration in the plants are secured. It is expected that the P4F technology will generate substantial growth with the partner companies and that the know-how and the growth will be taking place inside Europe.

6 2 Challenges The technology providers are developing the injection moulding tool patterning technology specifically focussing on the patterns being provided from academia. This ensures that the efforts are spent in the most efficient manner. The partners will focus all their energy on realizing patterns that, at the end of the day, is value adding to the final plastic products. The end-users have motivated the academic partner to develop patterns that address specific needs or challenges experienced in daily life, and the end-users are inside the P4F project taking the injection moulding tools patterned with the given geometries to test in real production environment. This is a key parameter in order to achieve a twofold advantage: 1) Feedback from end-users can be given to academic partners and technology providers, and by this improvements can be made within the project period. 2) Demonstrators motivated by the end-users are produced in the project period and thereby barriers for successful implementation after the project in real life production are minimized. We expect that the P4F project will demonstrate uniform colour effects, anti-reflection effects, selfcleaning effects as well as diffractive optical effects, and that all effect will find its way to real life products 5

7 at the end-users within a period of months after the completion of the P4F project. We also expect that other companies will adopt the technology, some even at shorter timescale due to less strict safety regulations compared to the toys and automobile industry. As in matter of fact, we expect that the technology providers will see both top line and bottom line growth starting already six months after completion of P4F project. This is a very realistic expectation as the technology providers already now, less than 12 months into the project, experience heavy external interest for the technology being developed. The interest is generated from few talks by academic and industrial partners as well as from the project web site. The P4F focus its development efforts to provide our end-user partners from automobile and toy industry with novel solutions. However, we also speculate, based on specific interest, that the technology will have major impact on other industries, such as packaging, anti-counter feiting, medio and pharma. We expect that new projects will be introduced to the market from the project endusers. These projects will be superior to existing projects as they will be less energy consuming in production, less chemicals will be used in the production and new functionalities of plastic products will be introduced. 6

8 3 European added value The full value chain from concept and development, to technology value chain and to end-users are included in the P4F project and thereby the knowledge generated is solid anchored inside the European Union. The primary focus is to generate new products and production methods within the toy and automotive industry, and to scale these solutions to other industries such as pharmaceutics, packaging, and anti-counterfeiting. The project partners all represent state-of-the-art skills within their explicit place in the value chain, and it would not have been possible to assemble this unique consortium without funding from the EC and also through the means provided by the EC unique technology with SMEs is being geared to industrial use across many different sectors. The limitation of the research and commercial risk is of paramount importance to the participating partners. The winning from the P4F project are many. Growth to the participating industrial partners is a given, the clients of the technology will benefit from a unique and very competitive technology, know-how is secured within the European Union, CO2 reducing production technology is implemented across many sectors, a competitive technology is anchored within EC that will enable thousands of companies to compete on knowledge with low labour cost countries, i.e. employments are not only secured within EC, but growth will be generated. 7

9 4 Partners DTU Nanotech European Plastic Converters Centro Ricerche FIAT S.c.p.A. Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology NIL Technology ApS microresist technology GmbH IPT Fraunhofer Karlruhe Institute of Technology ToolPartners AB Centro Ricerche Plast-optica S.p.A. CemeCon Scandinavia A/S Maier S. Coop Lego System A/S Uddeholm AS 8

10 4 Contact Project coordinator: Professor Anders Kristensen Technical University of Denmark Department of Micro- & Nanotechnology Building 345E 2800 Lyngby Phone: Communication coordinator: Ruth Colado Cabo EuPC Avenue de Cortenbergh 71, 1000 Brussels Belgium Phone The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-FoF-nmp ) under grant agreement number

11 10

12