Surface functionalization of organic materials by weakly ionized highly dissociated oxygen plasma

A review on surface modification of different polymers by treatment in oxygen plasma is presented. Plasma is created in a high frequency inductively coupled gaseous discharge at the power of about 200 W. In such discharge created in pure oxygen, plasma with the following parameters is obtained: the electron temperature of about 50.000 K, the charged particle density around 1x10¹⁶ m^-3, and the neutral oxygen atom density of the order of 10²¹ m^-3. A huge flux of neutral oxygen atoms on the surface of samples exposed to plasma assures for rapid interaction with polymer materials. The modification of surface properties of the following polymers was studied: polyethyleneterephthalate (PET), polyethersulphone (PES), polyphenylenesulfide (PPS), Nylon 6 polyamide (PA6), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and cellulose (ink-jet paper and textile). The polymer samples were treated for 3 s in oxygen plasma at a pressure of 75 Pa where the O-atom density was the largest at 4x10²¹ m^-3. The appearance of the functional groups on the surface of the samples was monitored by high resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results show that oxygen plasma treatment is an effective tool for surface modification. On all polymer surfaces increased concentration of oxygen is detected. The high resolution C1s peaks indicate formation of several new oxygen-containing functional groups. On all polymers groups like C-O, C=O and O=C-O are observed. The concentration of these groups depends on the type of polymer. The highest uptake of oxygen by the polymer was found for cellulose and the lowest for polypropylene. The only exception was polymer PTFE where practically no chemical changes were observed after plasma treatment.