Hydrophilic Fluorocarbon Coatings via Plasma Enhanced-Chemical Vapour Co-Deposition of Acrylic Acid and Hexafluoropropylene Oxide

Abstract

The co-deposition of acrylic acid and hexafluoropropylene oxide in pulsed plasmas was studied with the purpose to obtain wettable fluorocarbon coatings containing carboxylic acid groups, which are potentially useful for several employments, e.g., as proton-exchange membranes for electrochemical applications.It was found that the hydrophilic fluorocarbon thin films with the higher concentration of surface acidic groups can be obtained at lower duty cycle. After one week of immersion in water at 80°C the trends are inverted, the concentration of acidic groups and the wettability increase with the duty cycle.NICOLETTA DE VIETRO et al. 40

Low pressure plasma functionalized cellulose fiber for the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbons polluted water

“…In both cases the treated surfaces can turn hydrophobic [39] or even superhydrophobic [45][46][47]. On the contrary, if the plasma is fed with oxygen and acidic or basic vapours, hydrophilic surfaces can be obtained [43,48,49,50]. When working with fluorine containing feed, the experimental condition must be properly evaluated since the plasma treatment of organic and of some inorganic substrates can also result in dry etching, i.e., the removal of material from the sample surface for the formation of volatile products [38,51].…”