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In this work, medium pressure plasma treatment of polylactic acid (PLA) is investigated. PLA is a biocompatible aliphatic polymer, which can be used for bone fixation devices and tissue engineering scaffolds. Due to inadequate surface properties, cell adhesion and proliferation are far less than optimal and a surface modification is required for most biomedical applications. By using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) operating at medium pressure in different atmospheres, the surface properties of a PLA foil are modified. After plasma treatment, water contact angle measurements showed an increased hydrophilic character of the foil surface. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed an increased oxygen content. Cell culture tests showed that plasma modification of PLA films increased the initial cell attachment both quantitatively and qualitatively. After 1 day, cells on plasma-treated PLA showed a superior cell morphology in comparison with unmodified PLA samples. However, after 7 days of culture, no significant differences were observed between untreated and plasma-modified PLA samples. While plasma treatment improves the initial cell attachment, it does not seem to influence cell proliferation. It has also been observed that the difference between the 3 discharge gases is negligible when looking at the improved cell-material interactions. From economical point of view, plasma treatments in air are thus the best choice.

In this work, an atmospheric pressure glow‐like dielectric barrier discharge in argon with small admixtures of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) is employed for the deposition of thin polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films. The effect of discharge power and feed composition (monomer concentration) on film properties has been investigated by means of contact angle measurements, Fourier‐Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT‐IR), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The results are described by defining a W/FM value, where W is the discharge power, F the monomer flow rate, and M is the molecular weight of the monomer. This paper shows that the deposition rate and the chemical composition of the deposited films are strongly affected by the W/FM value at which plasma‐polymerization is performed.

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