ADHESION OF PET/PSMA INTERFACES REINFORCED WITH PLASMA TREATMENT

Abstract

The interface between biaxially oriented poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) films and poly (styrene-co-maleic anhydride) (PSMA) was reinforced by nitrogen plasma treatment of PET film and subsequent annealing treatment of the PET/PSMA bi-material. The fracture toughness, Gc, of the interface was quantitatively measured using an asymmetric double cantilever beam test (ADCB). X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS) was used to measure the change in the surface composition of PET films upon plasma treatment and correlate the fracture toughness of the interface. The fracture energy of PET/PSMA interface is significantly enhanced by annealing the plasma treated PET with PSMA at a temperature greater than the glass transition temperature of PSMA (~ 120°C). At an annealing temperature of 150°C, Gc increases with increasing plasma treatment time and reaches a plateau value of ~ 100–120 J/m2, a two order of magnitude increase in Gc compared with that of samples annealed at 130°C. The enhancement of the adhesion is resulted from the in-situ formation of copolymers due to reaction between amine functional groups from the plasma treatment and anhydride groups from PSMA. For plasma treatment time < 10 s, scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurement show that the fracture surface is relatively smooth indicating an interfacial failure between PET/PSMA. With increasing plasma treatment time and therefore increasing the amount of nitrogen functional groups on PET surface, large plastic deformation takes place at the PET/PSMA interface. For treatment time ≥ 100–150 s, the PET/PSMA interface becomes stronger than PET bulk material and consequently crack deviates from the interface and the failure occurs within the PET film. The interlayer fracture energy of a biaxially oriented PET film can thus be quantitatively measured with a Gc value of roughly 120 J/m2.