TY - JOUR A1 - Girard-Lauriault, P.-L. A1 - Dietrich, Paul A1 - Gross, Thomas A1 - Wirth, Thomas A1 - Unger, Wolfgang T1 - Chemical characterization of the long-term ageing of nitrogen-rich plasma polymer films under various ambient conditions N2 - Nitrogen rich plasma polymer films (L-PPE:N) were prepared by low-pressure RF plasma using a 1:1 mixture of ethylene and ammonia and aged for 345 d in four different ambient conditions: (i) at room temperature (RT) in air; (ii) at RT in nitrogen; (iii) at -20?°C in air and; (iv) at –20 °C in nitrogen. The films were analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and by time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) at various intervals over the duration of the experiment. The ageing of primary amines, NH2, was followed by chemical derivatization with 4-trifluoromethyl benzaldehyde. Storage at –20 °C, mostly independently of ambient atmosphere, slowed down ageing to almost undetectable levels as evaluated by the analytical methods used for this study. KW - Ageing KW - Plasma polymers KW - Primary amines KW - ToF-SIMS KW - XPS PY - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ppap.201200118 SN - 1612-8850 SN - 1612-8869 VL - 10 IS - 4 SP - 388 EP - 395 PB - Wiley-VCH Verl. CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-28006 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -