Abstract
A study is presented on cold plasma treatment of the surfaces of two engineering polymers, polyamide 6 (PA6) and polyoxymethylene (POM-C), by diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharges under atmospheric air conditions. We found that plasma treatment improved the adhesion of both polymers for either polymer/polymer or polymer/steel joints. However, the improved adhesion was selective for the investigated adhesive agents that were dissimilar for the two studied polymers. In addition, improvement was significantly higher for PA6 as compared to POM-C. The observed variation of the adhesion was discussed in terms of the changes in surface chemistry, wettability and topography of the polymer surface.
Highlights
Engineering polymers find broad application in any industrial area owing to their many favorable properties, such as machinability, dimensional stability, resistance to corrosion and chemicals combined with low cost
The goal of this paper is to study the effects of diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge (DCSBD) atmospheric pressure plasma on surface modification and consequent properties of polyamide 6 (PA6) and polyoxymethylene (POM-C)
A considerable decrease in the water contact angle values was found for a range of polymers after cold plasma treatment in several research papers, as compared by Dixon [16]
Summary
Engineering polymers find broad application in any industrial area owing to their many favorable properties, such as machinability, dimensional stability, resistance to corrosion and chemicals combined with low cost. Possess poor surface properties, such as low surface energy and low wettability due to the insufficient polar groups on the surface. Among the numerous attempts to improve the surface properties, cold plasma treatments have become increasingly popular. This is due to environmental concerns [8] and because cold plasma treatment subsequently provides a viable technical solution under atmospheric pressure at a relatively low cost [9,10,11]. Plasma treatment improves the adhesive properties of polymers by inducing several changes on the polymer surface—the ionized species and free radicals present in the plasma remove organic impurities commonly present on the surface. While the cold plasma treatment of various polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyether ether ketone, polyethylene terephthalate, Polymers 2018, 10, 1380; doi:10.3390/polym10121380 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers
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