Surface modification of polymeric materials by plasma immersion ion implantation

Polymer surfaces typically have low surface tension and high chemical inertness and so they usually have poor wetting and adhesion properties. The surface properties can be altered by modifying the molecular structure using plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII). In this work, Nylon-6 was treated using oxygen/nitrogen PIII. The observed improvement in the wettability is due to the oxygenated and nitrogen (amine) functional groups created on the polymer surface by the plasma treatment. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results show that nitrogen and oxygen plasma implantation result in C-C bond breaking to form the imine and amine groups as well as alcohol and/or carbonyl groups on the surface. The water contact angle results reveal that the surface wetting properties depend on the functional groups, which can be adjusted by the ratio of oxygen-nitrogen mixtures.