Our Quick test pens and inks allow an accurate and quick determination of surface tension in dyne/cm (mN/m).
You need at least 38 dynes threshold. This is the surface energy you need to be able to print coat or laminate plastics. Surface tension is essential for adhesion in printing, adhesion on plastic, metallic, and generally on all non porous materials, especially PP (polypropylene) and PE (polyethylene). Untreated PE and PP has a surface tension of ~30 dynes.
You should treat the surface with Corona or plasma equipment. But how do you know if your material is ready for printing? Our video explains : CHECK IT OUT!
You can wait and do a quality control at the end of the production. But that way you waste a lot of time and material. You can take out some material and put it under an “microscope” tensiometer. Which is good but takes time.
What if you could check in between processes and know if you’re good to go or you need an extra pre-treatment. You can do all this in a matter of seconds without stopping your production line.
Use our Dyne QuickTest Pen. Quickly check if your material can be treated. The tresshold is 38 dynes. Mark/stroke a line on the surface, if the line stays a line you can go ahead. If the line become droplets then it’s safe to say the surface energy is below 38 dynes and you will not get a desired result. We uses fast drying ink at about 38 dynes. This range is less precise than others but it is really interesting to know fastly if a material is treated or not.