Abstract
Direct electroless silver plating of para-aramid (PPTA) is difficult due to its extremely low surface chemical energy. In order to facilitate the deposition of silver nanoparticles and to enhance the washing fastness, oxygen plasma treatment and dopamine modification were conducted before silver plating of PPTA fibers. Various techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) were used to characterize the surface morphology, chemical composition and thermal stability of the silver-plated PPTA fibers. Electrical resistance and silver content of the silver-coated PPTA fibers before and after standard washing were also studied. The results showed that silver nanoparticles were successfully coated onto the surface of PPTA fibers with and without plasma treatment, but the coating continuity and the electrical conductivity of the silver-coated PPTA fibers were greatly enhanced with the assistance of plasma treatment. It was also demonstrated that the washing fastness of silver-coated PPTA fibers was improved after plasma treatment as indicated by electrical resistance and continuity of the silver nanoparticles after various washing cycles. It was found that the electrical resistance of plasma-treated PPTA-PDA/Ag fibers prepared at an AgNO3 concentration of 20 g/L reached 0.89 Ω/cm and increased slightly to 0.94 Ω/cm after 10 standard washing cycles. The silver-coated PPTA fibers also showed stable electrical conductivity under 250 repeated stretching-releasing cycles at a strain of 3%.
Highlights
(p-phenylene terephthamide) (PPTA) fibers, known as para-aramid fibers are widely used in military and aerospace industries due to their excellent physical properties, chemical and thermal stability [1,2]
It can be seen that the pristine PPTA fibers had a smooth surface without impurities while the surface of plasma-treated PPTA fibers was etched to a certain extent, the roughness, as well as the specific surface area, were improved, which provided more favorable conditions for the deposition of dopamine
It was found that the deposition of polydopamine on plasma-treated PPTA fibers was more evident than the pristine PPTA fibers
Summary
(p-phenylene terephthamide) (PPTA) fibers, known as para-aramid fibers are widely used in military and aerospace industries due to their excellent physical properties, chemical and thermal stability [1,2]. Lee 3 prepared silver-coated aramid fibers by using the impregnation method, the obtained fiber has good washing fastness for a duration of 30 min, but its silver content is low and cannot form a continuous silver layer. The group of Zhang [4] successfully prepared silver-coated PPTA fibers by using traditional electroless silver plating, which has good uniformity and continuity, but the washing fastness needs to be improved. In order to further enhance the efficient deposition of silver nanoparticles and improve the coating fastness, we reported the low-temperature oxygen plasma treatment of PPTA fibers prior to dopamine modification. Plasma treatment was used to increase surface activity of PPTA fibers, resulting in more reactive sites on the fiber surface and more binding bond sites could be formed between dopamine and para-aramid [33,34,35]. Electroless silver plating [9,10,25,33,35,38]
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