Influence of operating parameters on plasma polymerization of acrylic acid in a mesh-to-plate dielectric barrier discharge

Plasma polymerization of acrylic acid is an interesting research subject, since the obtained coatings can have significant biomedical applications due to their high surface density of carboxylic acid groups. In this work, plasma-polymerized acrylic acid (PPAA) films are synthesized using a mesh-to-plate dielectric barrier discharge operated at medium pressure (10.0 kPa). Results clearly show that this reactor setup is able to deposit uniform PPAA films in contrast to the commonly used parallel plate reactor. Moreover, carefully planned experiments are conducted to study the influence of discharge power and monomer concentration on the chemical composition and thickness of the PPAA films. Results clearly show that input power strongly influences the properties of the deposited films: with increasing discharge power, monomer fragmentation in the discharge increases leading to a decrease in carboxylic acid functional groups and a lower polymer deposition rate. The effect of monomer concentration is less pronounced: only at very low monomer concentration (0.1 g/h), a decrease in carboxylic acid functional groups can be observed. The chemical composition and thickness of the PPAA films can thus be tailored by adjusting the operational parameters of the discharge.