Preparation of a Super Hydrophilic Polytetrafluoroethylene Surface Using a Gaseous Ammonia-Water Low-Temperature Plasma

Abstract

The present study developed a new method of modifying the surface of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) to increase its wettability, using low-temperature radio frequency (RF) plasma, thus lowering its contact angle and improving associated mechanical properties such as peel strength. We succeeded in generating a super hydrophilic PTFE surface with a contact angle of less than 4° using a low-temperature RF plasma generated from an argon, ammonia and water vapor mixture. During treatment, fluorine elimination was observed and hydrophilic functional groups containing oxygen and nitrogen atoms were found to bond to the PTFE surface. Simultaneously, the surface morphology was dramatically changed to obtain an effective level of roughness.

A Spectroscopic Study on Argon-Ammonia Water Gaseous Plasma Super-hydrophilizing Polytetrafluoroethylene

“…The plasma reaction apparatus used in this study was almost the same as that mentioned previously [1][2] excluding parts for measuring plasma emission spectra. Fig.…”

“…In particular, the superior characteristics of NH 3 /H 2 O gases combined with Ar for superhydrophilic polymer surface treatment were investigated. So far, we have found that a lowtemperature plasma formed from a mixture of gaseous argon, ammonia and water was very effective at rendering the normally inert polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) surface super hydrophilic [1]. The surface modification of PTFE by plasma treatment using a mixture of gases has attracted a great deal of attention [3][4][5][6].…”

“…The surface modification of PTFE by plasma treatment using a mixture of gases has attracted a great deal of attention [3][4][5][6]. Adding water vapor to an argon/ammonia plasma was observed to dramatically decrease the water contact angle (WCA) on PTFE and to eventually generate super hydrophilic surfaces on PTFE films with WCA less than 4° [1].…”

Creation of Super-Hydrophilic Surface of Polytetrafluoroethylene Using Ammonia-Water Vapor Plasma

“…ル(pass energy, 117.4 eV ; step size 1.000 eV)を示す。 N2 Table 4. C1s peak assignments 4) for the PTFE specimen treated with Ar/NH3-H2O plasma in Fig. 2(b…”

Surface Modification of Fluorine-containing Polymers by Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet with Negative Substrate Biasing

“…Therefore, proper surface treatments are crucial for any applications to use them for adhesion with other materials. So far, many research have been carried out to improve the surface adhesion property of fluoropolymers by making use of wet chemical approaches with sodium naphthalenide treatment [1][2][3], photochemical modification with hydrazine [4], ion beam irradiation [5] or surface modification using low pressure plasmas [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and atmospheric pressure plasmas [13][14][15].…”