Nitrogen- and oxygen-based plasma polymer films are materials with a complex and partially elusive surface chemistry. We present an overview of innovative and established X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)-based analysis strategies developed to elucidate the surface chemistry of such films. We focus on both experimental methods and data analysis strategies and include the following topics: high-resolution spectra curve fitting, aging, chemical derivatization, and depth profiling by angle- and energy-resolved XPS.
Aerosol-based DBD - A simple way to provide polymers with functional groups for adhesion promotion
(2013)
Polypropylene (PP) foils were exposed to the plasma of an atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in presence of different aerosols. Pure liquids such as water, ethanol, and 1/1 mixtures ethanol/water (v/v) or aqueous Solutions of acetic acid, poly(acrylic acid), poly(vinyl alcohol), and ethylene glycolpoly(vinyl alcohol) copolymer were introduced into the DBD. Surface composition, the number of functional groups per 100 C atoms, and water contact angles were correlated with the energy density of DBD plasma exposure.
The wettability of the treated surfaces was investigated for different storage times. Peel strength of the thermally deposited aluminum layer to modified polymer surfaces revealed that the aerosol introduction strongly improves the adhesion between aluminum and polypropylene.
In contrast to other plasma modification processes of polymer surfaces, the bromination is very selective and shows a high yield in C—Br groups. The most convenient bromination process was found using bromoform, which was thus preferred to elemental bromine, allyl bromide, vinyl bromide or tert-butylbromide. The bromoform process give yields in C—Br up to 40 C—Br or more, with only 2-3% co-introduction of O-functionalities whereas allyl bromide results in yields of about 20 C—Br and more, but in more than 10% oxygen-containing by-products. C—Br groups serve as anchoring points for grafting of molecules, oligomers and pre-polymers of diole or diamine character.
Several possibilities exist to produce a modified polymer surface with a high density of only one sort of functional group such as: (i) the plasma grafting of unfragmented monomer molecules and their polymerization forms OH, NH2, COOH groups, etc. in concentrations of approximately 25 groups per 100 C atoms; (ii) selective plasma bromination provides 1025 CBr groups; (iii) the plasma oxidation of polymer surfaces in an O2 plasma followed by the chemical reduction of all O-containing groups to OH groups by diborane, vitride (Na complex) or LiAlH4 yields 914 OH groups per 100 carbon atoms; and (iv) the grafting of spacers with different endgroups onto OH or CBr groups produces 710 spacer molecules/100 C. This work was focused on the formation of thin plasma deposited polymer layers with a maximum of (homo)functional groups and with a minimum of chemical irregularities using the pulsed plasma technique. The monomers were allylalcohol, allylamine, acrylonitrile and acrylic acid. The further intent was to study the interactions of functional groups (OH, COOH, NH2) and deposited metals (Cr, Al, Ti). It was expected that more basic (NH2), weakly basic or neutral (OH) or more acidic (COOH) groups would show different interactions and chemical reactions with metal atoms.
Functional groups bearing monomers were pulsed plasma polymerised with a degree of retained functional groups of 5591%. The following functional groups could be produced at a maximum of: 30 OH, 18 NH2, and 24 COOH per 100 C atoms. A plasma-initiated radical copolymerisation could also be realised using the functional group bearing monomers as a source of functionalities, olefins as chain-extenders and dienes as chemical cross-linkers. The peel strengths of Al layers on such plasma polymers were correlated to the type and density of functional groups.