OEM: Siemens, Deutschland Year: 2008 Industry sector: Panels and housings for mobile phones and standard phones

Part design:

In all areas of application for plastic films, the demands on abrasion resistance are rising constantly. Conventional coating processes for applying a scratch-resistant finish to the films are, however, too complicated, prone to error and costly. For this reason, we have been working together with Siemens, ALBEA Kunststofftechnik and Pröll to develop a thermoformable hardcoat that can be applied economically to the plastic film by screen printing.
The new coating cures by the two-step crosslinking process ( Dual Cure). The first step involves thermal precrosslinking, as a result of which a flexible coating is produced that can be thermoformed with the film. Once the component has been shaped, the coating is given its final hardness through subsequent crosslinkage with UV.
The coating system has already proved its suitability for production-line manufacture in phone housing parts using our Bayfol® DF-A film. It is based on a urethane acrylate from Bayer MaterialScience‘s Desmolux® range and will in future be produced and marketed under the name Norilux by Pröll KG, which is based in Weißenburg, Germany.