| AVS 65th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Plasma Science and Technology Division | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session PS-TuP |
| Session: | Plasma Science and Technology Division Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Annaëlle Demaude, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique |
| Authors: | A. Demaude, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgique M.J. Gordon, University of California at Santa Barbara F. Reniers, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The quest for obtaining smart materials with combined surface properties is driven by their many potential applications. Whereas the surface science community can now easily synthesize (super)hydrophilic or (super)hydrophobic surfaces, there is nowadays a specific interest for having stable surfaces where some spots are hydrophobic and some are hydrophilic, leading for instance to controlled chemistry at the hydrophilic part, leaving the hydrophobic part unchanged (this is particularly useful for biomedical applications where controlled adsorption of biological molecules can be requested)1. Similarly, for antibiofouling applications in marine environment, having layers alternating in depth an hydrophilic/hydrophobic behavior may lead to lower shell adsorption2. This type of multilayers coating can also find applications in the manufacturing of water filtration membranes3.
In this research, we present a simple approach for synthesizing such patterns using a combination of two precursors, namely propargyl methacrylate (precursor for hydrophobicity) and acrylic acid (precursor for hydrophilicity) injected in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) operating at atmospheric pressure. A thin PVC mask is used for the surface patterning of the coating. Various amounts of the two precursors are injected in the DBD, which runs with argon as the main operating gas. These two precursors can indeed lead to coatings exhibiting contact angles varying from 140° to 15°4
The samples are characterized by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), both in static and dynamic mode, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and water contact angle. Despite the strong similarities between the two precursors, SIMS unambiguously show alternating in-depth composition of specific fragments. Similarly, water contact angle (with a reduced water drop size) shows that surface patterning is easily obtained by DBD, with contact angles of ~130° in hydrophobic areas and ~25° in hydrophilic areas. An alternate approach, consisting in exposing selected areas of the hydrophobic coating to an oxygen containing plasma, leads to angle of ~130° and ~17°, respectively. Such patterns are stable with time, opening the route for potential applications.
References:
(1) Ueda, E.; Levkin, P. A. Adv. Mater.2013, 25 (9), 1234–1247.
(2) Xu, G.; Liu, P.; Pranantyo, D.; Neoh, K.-G.; Kang, E.-T. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng.2018.
(3) Kong, Y.; Lin, X.; Wu, Y.; Chen, J.; Xu, J. J. Appl. Polym. Sci.1992, 46 (2), 191–199.
(4) Nisol, B.; Ghesquière, J.; Reniers, F. Plasma Chem. Plasma Process.2016, 36 (5), 1239–1252.
Acknowledgements :
This work is funded by the Walloon region programs “complements FEDER”, Flycoat and Hylife.