Moderator: Martin Engels (IHI Ionbond Group)
Event Description: Pre-cleaning is a highly critical and important step before PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) processes in order to ensure that the substrate surface is free of contaminants, oxides, and organic materials that could significantly reduce the adhesion of the deposited thin film to the substrate. Adhesion of coatings is a crucial aspect in order to obtain reproducible production quality, especially for mass production of coated parts, like automotive or decorative components.

For PVD mass production, the pre-cleaning is generally performed with either aqueous or solvent cleaning lines, which can be designed as so-called multi-tank systems or monoline chambers. Furthermore, hybrid systems which combine these approaches are available for end users as well. Generally, the chosen design, technology and chemistries in a cleaning line highly depend on the products to be washed and coated. For example, automotive components like piston pins are normally oiled and the oil needs to be removed, whereas the parts must be protected against corrosion between washing and coating. In addition, cleaned surface finishes of decorative parts need full attention on rinsing and drying to avoid any visual contamination like water stains. To meet these requirements, a high level of experience and understanding of cleaning machine designs, cleaning chemicals, and the related processes is needed to provide the best solution to coating operations.

In order to give the TechCon participants a deeper insight into this very important factor of vacuum coating related processes, we have gathered a team of experts, who will cover the different cleaning technologies as well as chemicals which are used to reach effective and efficient cleaning solutions.

• Ken Allen (Novatec S.r.l.)
• Henry Ederle (Borer Chemie AG)
• Stefan Lukowski (SAFECHEM Europe GmbH)
• Beth Bivins (KYZEN Corporation)
• Karl Trautz (HEMO GmbH)