Study of residual gas formed during plasma debinding of powder injection moulded parts

Abstract

Mass spectrometry (MS) and optical spectroscopy have been used to study the residual gas formed during hydrogen plasma debinding of polypropylene from powder injection moulded parts. Mass spectra show that the residual gas formed during the debinding process presents a large number of aliphatic compounds and a certain difficulty in their identification. However, it was possible to identify the presence of propylene, methane, acetylene and ethane. Optical spectroscopy also shows the presence of CH radicals. The end point of the debinding process can easily be monitored by following the temporal evolution of the CH radical and the different ions by optical spectroscopy and MS, respectively.