Control, Effection and Analysis of Voltage during Dielectric Barrier Discharges Plasma Surface Treated Carbon Fibers

Abstract

The deposition of coatings on the surface of carbon fiber will be helpful to their applications. However, they are unsuitable to be deposited due to their low surface free energies, poor wettability and poor adhesions. The objective of this work is to modify carbon fibers by Dielectric barrier discharges(DBD)in ambient argon . The chemical and physical changes induced by the treatments on carbon fibers surface are examined using contact angle measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The interfacial adhesion of CF/EP composites are analyzed by a single fiber composite (SFC) for filament fragmentation test. The contact angles of the plasma-treated samples are visibly reduced than the untreated samples. XPS results reveal that the carbon fibers modified with the DBD at an atmospheric pressure show a significant increase in oxygen-containing groups, such as C–O,C=O and O–C=O. The results of SFC tests show that the treated carbon fibers composites could possess excellent interfacial properties with mixed resins. These results demonstrate that the surfaces of the carbon fibers samples are more active, hydrophilic and rough after plasma treatments using a DBD operating in ambient argon.