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Published on: March 21, 2014
Superhydrophilic Modification of Polycarbonate Substrate Surface by Organic Plasma Polymerization Film
Kuan-Wei Lu1, Yu-Tian Lin1, Hung-Sen Wei1
1Department of Optics and Photonics, Thin Film Technology Center, National Central University, 300, Chung Da Rd., Chung Li, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan.
Abstract:
Superhydrophilicity performs well in anti-fog and self-cleaning applications. In this study, polycarbonate substrate was used as the modification object because of the low surface energy characteristics of plastics. Procedures that employ plasma bombardment, such as etching and high surface free energy coating, are applied to improve the hydrophilicity. An organic amino silane that contains terminal amine group is introduced as the monomer to perform plasma polymerization to ensure that hydrophilic radicals can be efficiently deposited on substrates. Different levels of hydrophilicity can be reached by modulating the parameters of plasma bombardment and polymerization, such as plasma current, voltage of the ion source, and bombardment time. The surface of a substrate that is subjected to plasma bombarding at 150 V, 4 A for 5 min remained superhydrophilic for 17 days. After 40 min of Ar/O2 plasma bombardment, which resulted in a substrate surface roughness of 51.6 nm, the plasma polymerization of organic amino silane was performed by tuning the anode voltage and operating time of the ion source, and a water contact angle < 10° and durability up to 34 days can be obtained.

