| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016) | |
| Thin Films | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session TF-TuP |
| Session: | Thin Films Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Steven Durrant, UNESP - Sorocaba, Brazil |
| Authors: | P. Garcia, UNESP - Sorocaba, Brazil C. Rangel, UNESP - Sorocaba, Brazil F. Durrant, UNESP - Sorocaba, Brazil |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Cold plasma treatment is well established for the modification of metal, glass and polymers. Treatments of polymers in plasmas of inert gases can alter the degree of cross-linking, release hydrogen, and produce dangling bonds, thus affecting the surface morphology and reactivity. In addition to such effects, treatments in plasmas of gases such as oxygen, carbon tetrafluoride or nitrogen, can cause etching and introduce new elements, such as O, F or N, to the polymer surface. It is known that cold nitrogen plasma treatment of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) can strongly modify its properties; for example, reducing its surface contact angle to zero. There is still much to be learnt, however, about the effect of the system parameters on the modifications produced. In this study, PTFE is treated in cold nitrogen plasmas as a function of the gas pressure, P, RF plasma power, W, and exposure time, t. The variables P, W and t range from zero to 100 mTorr, 200 W, and 30 min. respectively. The induced chemical structural and compositional changes are examined using Infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflection (ATR) and Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Surface roughness and morphology are examined using Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Surface contact angles are measured using goniometry.