Study on the electrical and surface properties of Polyamide 6 woven fabrics using pen-type radio frequency plasma treatment

Abstract

This study showed an improvement in how functional groups activate on to the polymer surface by using the pen-type plasma treatment. These functional groups will graft on to the original polymer bonds and activate the surfaces of polymer products such as synthetic fabrics, films, and plastics. This research discussed the modifications of the hydrophilicity and conductivity in Polyamide 6 woven fabrics prior to and following the surface plasma treatment. First, without considering any processing, such as calendering, fabrics with the same denier but different numbers of filament were compared after the plasma treatment. The analysis of the experiment verifies that after the plasma treatment, the finer the filament the fiber has, the better improvements are obtained in the surface properties, such as hydrophilicity and surface resistivity. Next, after including the factor of calendering, the experiment also confirmed that the Polyamide 6 fabric processed with calendering exhibits better modification affects than those without it. In addition, the hydrophilicity modification result increases with irradiation time for fabrics treated with pen-type plasma, where the hydrophilicity modification benefit improves by 20–30%. Moreover, fabrics coated with poly-3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) are tested by washing. It has been confirmed that the washing resistance of the conductivity benefit appears to improve with the number of calendering times and irradiation time. The spectra show formation of COOH-groups (3300–2400 cm−1), after impregnated acrylic acid process, and also show formation of O–H (alcohol) groups (3650–3200 cm−1), after PEDOT coating.