Joining Technology of Flat Panel Photobioreactor Case

Adhesive bonding and plastic welding have been widely used to join two plastic materials together. The goal of this paper is to determine a proper joining technology of a pair of flat panel (FP) photobioreactor (PBR) case. The material of the FP PBR case is polycarbonate (PC) plate. Two types of adhesion, including acryl adhesive and two-part epoxy adhesive, as well as two types of plastic welding technology, including ultrasonic welding and thermal welding, are employed for joining of PC plates. In order to influence of the adhesion and welding conditions on the joining characteristics of the PC plates in operational conditions of the FP PBR case, the morphology in the vicinity of the joined region as well as the water and pressure resistance characteristic are investigated. In addition, the variation of the bonding strength of the joined region and deformation behaviors in the vicinity of the joined region according to the adhesion and welding conditions is examined via the lap-shear test. From the results of basic experiments, proper joining technologies are chosen. Using the chosen joining technologies, the FP PBR case are fabricated to perform full-scale durability experiment. The results of the full-scale durability experiment have been shown that the chosen joining technologies can be applicable to fabricate the FP PBR case.