Bonding of high nitrile resins onto surface plasma treated plastics

Claim 1

A process for adhering high nitrile resins onto a plastic material comprising the steps of: selecting a high nitrile resin prepared by the copolymerization of an olefinically unsaturated monovinyl nitrile and a monovinyl monomer copolymerizable therewith in the presence of a conjugated diene rubber, said resin having a nitrile content of at least about 60 percent by weight; preparing a solution comprising from about one to 70 percent by weight of said high nitrile resin in a photopolymerizable solvent comprising from about 30 to 99 percent by weight of said solution and from about 0.1 to 10 percent by weight of a photoinitiator with an attendant decrease in one or both of said high nitrile resin and said photopolymerizable solvent to provide 100 percent by weight of said solution; subjecting the surface of said plastic material to a reactive gas plasma, said reactive gases being selected from the group consisting of water, oxygen, hydrogen and combinations thereof to modify said surface; applying said solution onto said modified plastic surface; and curing said high nitrile resin and photopolymerizable solvent by irradiation to form a tack free protective coating highly adherent to said plastic surface; wherein said step of subjecting the surface of said plastic material to a reactive gas plasma is conducted in a containment vessel providing a vacuum chamber having an anode and a cathode and includes the steps of contacting said anode with said plastic; initiating said reactive gas plasma step by evacuating said vacuum chamber to a pressure of from about 10 -3 torr to about 10 -10 torr and applying a voltage of from about 0.5 volts to about 1000 volts with an alternating current of from about 150 kHz to about 2 GHz such that the net power generated is from about 10 watts to about 10 kilowatts between said cathode and said anode; and treating said plastic surface for a period of from about one minute to about 60 minutes.