Surface Modification of Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) Microporous Membranes by Acrylic Acid Liquid-Phase Graft Copolymerization

Abstract

Air plasma-pretreated poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) films were subjected to further surface modification by liquid-phase graft copolymerization with acrylic acid monomer (AAc). The surface compositions and microstructures of the modified films were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). An exterior graft copolymerization of AAc on the PTFE fiber was indicated by the SEM photographs. The XPS results indicated that the F/C atomic ratio of the membranes were 1.837 and 1.207, and the O/C atomic ratio were 0 and 0.112 for the original and liquid-phase grafted PTFE membranes, respectively. The pore size distributions of the treated and untreated PTFE membranes, measured by the bubble-point method, were much smaller than that of the untreated membrane.

Modification of a Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) Porous Membrane to Superhydrophilicity with Improved Durability

“…Numerous efforts have been made to enhance PTFE surface polarity and wettability for higher permeate flux of filtration processes, such as chemical oxidation treatment , wet‐chemical method , , gaseous plasma treatment , and irradiation graft polymerization . Most of these methods were only carried out on flat PTFE membranes by means of complicated instruments.…”

Scalable bonding of nanofibrous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membranes on microstructures

“…Different techniques have been introduced to improve the wetting and adhesion properties of PTFE surfaces. Examples of these techniques are plasma, radiation [18][19][20] and chemical treatment [21]. Utsumi et al [20] enhanced bonding characteristics of PTFE surfaces using x-ray photo decomposition desorption and ablation and showed that PTFE changes state and exhibits hydrophilic characteristics after exposure to high-energy photons.…”