Flexible compression injection moulding platform for multi-scale surface structures: The IMPRESS FP7 project

Within the seventh framework programme, the IMPRESS project targets the development of a technological injection moulding platform for serial production of plastic components incorporating micro or nano scale functional features. The platform will be based on the gathering of up to date and most advanced facilities based on three main modules, each of them being a tool box including several building blocks: (A) A tool manufacturing module involving different technologies of micro-nano direct manufacturing, from top-down to bottom-up such as self-assembling, (B) an injection moulding module including equipments fitted with up to date hardware to improve replication quality and capability and (C) an intelligence module dedicated to advanced process control and online metrology integration. Beside this large panel of facilities, three case studies have been selected (biology, health and energy), each of them requiring a specific and well defined surface micro-nano texturation. These case studies cover a very large range of nano-feature (from 100nm up to 1 µm) and component size (from 1 cm2 up to 1000 cm2). They will serve to qualify the capabilities of the different building blocks and will allow (i) to select the most suitable building blocks as of application requirements, (ii) to learn about the platform working and (iii) to anticipate the technological future of the platform.