United Power: Plasmatreat US acquires 4th State, Inc.

In the course of its expansion in the American market Plasmatreat US, Elgin, IL a subsidiary of Plasmatreat GmbH, Germany, has acquired the Californian low-pressure (LP) plasma specialist 4th State, Inc., Belmont. Plasmatreat is the market leader in atmospheric plasma-jet technology. This is the second purchase of a low pressure-plasma company to include the acquisition of Plasma Technology Systems (PTS) in 2011.

Acquiring 4th State significantly expands the range of LP-plasma surface preparations and processes. The capacity for contract services increases by over 100 percent. The 4th State company focus is treatment of customer parts via a mature contract outsourcing (toll services) business. The customer base is comprised of medical, aerospace and electronic companies.

4th State and its facility are ISO QS 9001 certified. Among its prime assets, the company features the R2R60, a large, 60 inch wide continuous roll-to-roll plasma chamber designed by polymer chemist Stephen Kaplan. The tool’s function is the plasma modification of rolled goods including wovens, non-wo¬vens, films, foils and membranes. For the medical industry, the system allows for extremely cost effective functionalization of films, such as cyclic olefin copoly¬mers and polystyrene for immuno¬assay and microfluidic devices and cus¬tomized modification of membranes and wovens for filtration/separation chemistries. For the aerospace and defense industries the plasma activation is carried out on materials such as Spectra™, Zylon™, Kevlar™ and Kapton™.

The combination of low pressure and atmospheric plasma technologies offer the industries a maximum range of environmentally friendly surface treatment solutions for critical cleaning, activation, thin film deposition and functionalization processes. A move to a new, combined San Francisco Bay area location, merging the facilities to increase services for the North American and global customer base, is anticipated by the end of Q3/2013.

About Plasmatreat
The Plasmatreat Group is the word market leader for providing atmospheric plasma technology using jet-systems to achieve surface modifications of numerous substrates while eliminating the need of wet chemicals. The patented Openair® plasma-jet technology, invented almost 20 years ago, is utilized today in almost all industries around the world. Global headquarters are in Steinhagen, Germany. North American headquarters are located in Elgin, IL, near Chicago. Plasmatreat has technology centers in Germany, North America, Canada, China and Japan and subsidiaries and sales offices in more than 25 countries.

For more information: www.plasmatreat.com