Abstract
In Wenzel's model of the wetting behavior of rough surfaces, super-wetting can be achieved by micro-roughening a hydrophilic surface, but also by increasing the surface free energy of a micro-rough surface. Therefore, the objective of the present paper was to investigate the effect of grafting post-treatments of micro-rough surfaces having a good mechanical stability. The post-treatments were designed to increase the surface free energy and, accordingly, achieve pronounced surface wetting. Two potential designs of post-treatments were evaluated. A two-step plasma-based surface grafting and a UV-induced photo-chemical grafting.The plasma-based post-treatment was performed in a two-step process. First, the micro-rough samples were activated in argon or oxygen plasma. The subsequent grafting modification was carried out by immersing the samples in aqueous solutions of p-toluenesulfonic acid, glycerin, and saccharose. For the photo-chemical post-treatment, the micro-rough samples were dipped in an aqueous solution of poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (PEG300MA) and irradiated using a UV broadband lamp.Surface analysis showed that plasma-aided grafting resulted in the lowest water contact angles and extremely wetting surfaces. Following the photo-chemical grafting of PEG300MA, best results were of the order of 20°. In both cases, excellent stability of the layer and its wetting behavior was found.
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