Converting Quarterly title
The Official
Technical Magazine
of AIMCAL
small AIMCAL logo
  Search

Vacuum Web Coating

Blogmaster: Dr. Charles A. Bishop

25 Latest Articles Current Articles | Archives | Search

Materials

06

Holistic recycling

Posted by Charles Bishop on February 6, 2012
Recycling is ever present particularly for those who metallise large areas of polymer film.  Either the film is good for the planet because it reduces the energy used in the packaging as it replaces something more energy intensive, such as a metal foil laminate, or it is regarded as damaging to...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
13

Another developing barrier-film technology

Posted by Charles Bishop on July 13, 2011
This-film technology that attracted my attention uses the layering extrusion technique to produce a series of thin barrier layers that can then be incorporated in the centre of a standard film material.  Barrier materials can have advantages when used as separate layers. If there is an easy d...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
10

A new film that caught my eye

Posted by Charles Bishop on July 10, 2011
The film that caught my eye is one aimed at the security market.  The idea is not new but has been around for 20 years.  Pilots flying over the Amazon rainforest noticed flashes of blue or green within the forest which for some time remained unexplained. What caused these flashes were Morp...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
14

A question and challenge to determine the most cost-effective barrier coating

Posted by Charles Bishop on June 14, 2011
I recently received an e-mail with the following question: What is the lowest cost solution to achieve 10-4g/m2/day water vapour transmission rate by sputtering process? Assuming this was to be on a PET substrate. No optical restrictions so metals or oxide/oxynitrides could be considered. A: I find...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
25

Answering comments & an apology

Posted by Charles Bishop on April 25, 2011
Firstly the apology. Due to my incompetence, I had missed that I needed to accept comments before they would get posted onto the blog, and so some comments did not get published soon after they were posted and then because they were not posted, I failed to answer some o...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
01

Coating Purity

Posted by Charles Bishop on February 1, 2011
The coating purity can depend on several factors. In aluminium evaporation, the evaporation process itself helps to purify the aluminium as the wire melts and forms the molten pool it is only the dissolved contaminants that may get evaporated along with the aluminium. Anything else will form a crud ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
08

Polymer substrates: Why the same polymer might have a different performance

Posted by Charles Bishop on October 8, 2010
It is a common problem that a change of supplier of what is believed to be the same grade of film can lead to differences in performance. Firstly, to make the polymer film there may be more than one route to producing the polymer which will give different starting materials.  Even if the start...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
09

Response to question Re: Pinholes

Posted by Charles Bishop on September 9, 2010
Question: As far as the source of the pinholes concerns, besides of having a visual inspection and comparison of the appearance of the pinholes, what other type of analysis could be considered in order to be able to understand and therefore eliminate the problem? What would be the recommendation to ...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Ask AIMCAL, Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (0) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us
06

Pinholes

Posted by Charles Bishop on September 6, 2010
We came across one question answered by you ( dtd.Feb.2, 2009. "How are these pin holes formed ?")  on internet regarding the pin holes in metallized PET film. Is that pin holes are like sieve or unmetallized / metal removed portion of the film? How to detect the same is only metal removed a...

[Read the rest of this article...]

Posted in: Ask AIMCAL, Materials
Actions: E-mail | Permalink | Comments (3) RSS comment feed | del.icio.us

Blogmaster

Charles Bishop photo

Dr. Charles A. Bishop

Charles is a toolmaker by trade after completing a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. He then entered University and obtained a Bachelors degree in materials engineering with a Diploma in Industrial Studies. During his final year he first started work on vacuum based research, helping develop a process for manufacturing titanium based bone implants for tendon location. He went on to obtain a Masters degree and Doctorate following further research into vacuum deposition processes. During this time and as a postgraduate he also worked as a consultant.

Charles next spent time in industry working for various divisions of ICI including polyesters, nylon, Imagedata, Flex Products Inc., and explosives as well as contributing to other projects. In 1998 he took the opportunity to return to consultancy work and set up his own company.

Charles has more than 30 years experience in vacuum deposition mainly onto flexible webs. He has regularly contributed papers to conferences and recently has edited this blog on behalf of AIMCAL as well as being one of their presenters for various webinars and the more formal Converting School courses.

Charles has also published 2 books, Vacuum deposition onto webs, films and foils and Roll-to-roll vacuum deposition of barrier coatings.