Laminating electrically conductive plastic sheets

Laminating electrically conductive plastic sheets together

Using a sim­ple lam­i­na­tor, two 4mil sheets of Lin­q­s­tat vol­ume con­duc­tive film mate­r­i­al (a 3M Velo­stat Alter­na­tive) are lam­i­nat­ed togeth­er to form a sin­gle 8mil film. This can be done if only 4mil sheets are avail­able, or if small­er quan­ti­ties of 8mil sheet­ing is desired. Of course, it is pre­ferred to buy the sheets in the prop­er thick­ness and width, but some­times — just for the sake of exper­i­ment­ing — you might want to try lam­i­nat­ing elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive plas­tic sheets together.

Is there a risk to laminating electrically conductive plastic sheets?

It depends. If the goal of the exper­i­ment is sim­ply to see if the thick­ness of the con­duc­tive plas­tic is suit­able for your appli­ca­tion, then go right ahead. If the goal with the two sheets of plas­tic is to test the elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive prop­er­ties, then this may not be the best idea. 

Dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of the LINQSTAT mate­r­i­al, the con­duc­tive and non-con­duc­tive mate­ri­als are mixed togeth­er to get a homo­ge­neous mix­ture and even con­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­el. If these two sheets are then lam­i­nat­ed togeth­er aftwer­wards, then there is a lay­er between the two sheets that may not be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of sim­ply a thick­er lay­er of elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive plastic.

How can I laminate electrically conductive plastic sheets together?

If after you under­stand the risks of lam­i­nat­ing two sheets togeth­er, you still want to pro­ceed, then this video will explain the way to do it. You will see in the video one exam­ple, using a com­mod­i­ty — a plas­tic film lam­i­na­tor, but it can also be done using any heat­ing ele­ment such as an iron. The goal is to get the plas­tic above its melt­ing tem­per­a­ture so that the plas­tic melts and makes new bonds once it is cooled back down to room temperature.

We hope you enjoyed this short video.

CAPLINQ is a spe­cial­ty plas­tics sup­pli­er offer­ing a range of con­duc­tive mate­ri­als includ­ing our broad range of elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive plas­tics and anti­sta­t­ic tapes and films. If you have any ques­tions, please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us to find out how we can help you lam­i­nat­ing elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive sheets.

About Chris Perabo

Chris is an energetic and enthusiastic engineer and entrepreneur. He is always interested in taking highly technical subjects and distilling these to their essence so that even the layman can understand. He loves to get into the technical details of an issue and then understand how it can be useful for specific customers and applications. Chris is currently the Director of Business Development at CAPLINQ.

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