Environmentally Friendly Cold Plasma Coating Removal Techniques

The DOD requires an environmentally friendly, rapid, and non-destructive method to selectively remove coatings from composite substrates.  Atmospheric Plasma Solutions Inc. (APS) has developed a cold atmospheric plasma process to accomplish this goal. Current processes for the removal of coatings from composite materials are slow, expensive, and potentially damaging to the environment. APS has demonstrated in our Phase I SBIR project the feasibility of using a highly ionized non-thermal cold atmospheric plasma process to quickly and efficiently remove coatings from a wide variety of composite and temperature sensitive substrates.  The APS technology is inherently scalable to meet NDI applications,  field repair applications as well as large scale depot operations. BENEFITS: This Phase II project will further develop of a truly portable, selective coating removal technology for temperature sensitive composite materials based on a cold atmospheric plasma process. Commercial applications include the depainting of both military and civilian aircraft, spacecraft, ships, and land based platforms. This technology may also be applied to the industrial coating removal markets for structures such as bridges and buildings. Further process refinements will make this technology available to the automotive repaint market and eventually to consumer coating removal products.