Publication details
Comparative study of continuous plasma surface treatment of large-scale PTFE foil by air, argon and H2/N2 DCSBD plasma
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Surfaces and Interfaces |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfin.2025.108064 |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfin.2025.108064 |
| Keywords | Polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon; PTFE); DCSBD plasma; Wettability; Adhesion; Roughness; Forming gas |
| Description | The large-scale flexible Polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon, PTFE) foils were treated by Diffuse Coplanar Surface Barrier Discharge (DCSBD) plasma in concavely curved configuration by three types of processing gases, in particular ambient air, argon and the mixture of H2/N2 (forming gas, 5 % volume content of H2). To provide a complete study of plasma-treated PTFE surface, we investigated the wettability improvements with ageing effect, surface free energy and surface chemistry by XPS technique, morphology changes by AFM method and overall adhesion properties studied by 90° peel off tape test. The results show that DCSBD plasma is capable of effective hydrophilization even at plasma treatment time around 10 s. The XPS results showed that H2/N2 and argon plasma treatment effectively perform defluorination of the PTFE surface and initiate the formation of surface polar oxygen-containing functional groups, while air plasma treatment results in the largest relative increase of surface roughness of the plasma-treated PTFE surface. The analysis of surface adhesion indicates that there is a synergistic interplay between chemical and morphological changes since there is no significant overperformance of one type of processing gas and therefore, simple treatment by cheap and available gases like air and forming gas can effectively modify the PTFE surface without rapid hydrophobic recovery. |
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