Abstract
This paper presents a study concerning the preliminary treatments in radiofrequency (RF)oxygen (O2) plasma used to obtain a hydrophilic effect on raw cotton fabrics followed by electroconductive thin film deposition to obtain electroconductive textile surfaces. In addition, this study presents a multivariate correlation analysis of experimental parameters. The treatment using RF plasma O2 aimed to increase the hydrophilic character of the raw fabric and adherence of paste-based polymeric on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix and nickel (Ni), silver (Ag) or copper (Cu) microparticles. The purpose of the research was to develop electroconductive textiles for flexible electrodes, smart materials using a clean technology such as radiofrequency (RF) plasma O2 to obtain a hydrophilic surface with zero wastewater and reduced chemicals and carbon footprint. To achieve the foreseen results, we used advanced functionalization technologies such as RF plasma O2, followed by scraping a thin film of conductive paste-based Ni, Ag or Cu microparticles, and multivariate correlation methods to observe the dependence between parameters involved (dependent and independent variables). Overall, the fabrics treated in plasma with O2 using a kHz or MHz generator and power 100–200 W present an excellent hydrophilic character obtained in 3 min. After RF O2 plasma functionalization, a thin film based on polymeric matrix PVA and Ni microparticles have been deposited on the fabric surface to obtain electroconductive materials.
Highlights
Plasma treatment was successfully used in numerous applications for textile cleaning [1,2]or hydrophobization
The main goal of this study was to develop textile materials with electroconductive properties to be used as flexible electrodes by applying a preliminary treatment based on RF plasma O2 technology on the raw fabrics with a fibrous composition of 100% cotton, followed by coating with a thin film based on polymeric matric polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
The samples treated in RF plasma O2 using the generator RF2 and power 50 W continued to be hydrophobic
Summary
Plasma treatment was successfully used in numerous applications for textile cleaning [1,2]or hydrophobization. For cotton fabrics [7,8,9,10], RF plasma oxygen was used to generate the surface activation for preliminary surface preparation to be treated with ZnO nanoparticles [11,12] or titanium dioxide [13,14]. Several types of research present the use of plasma O2 treatment to improve the metal absorption [15,16] or to generate an antibacterial [17,18,19]. Numerous investigations use plasma to create electroconductive surfaces [21] using silver nanoparticles and polypyrrole [22] or copper [23]. Plasma was preferred because it is a friendly environmental technology having zero waste and a reduced carbon footprint
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