Long Term Water Adsorption Ratio Improvement of Polypropylene Fabric by Plasma Pre-treatment and Graft Polymerization

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Although the hydrophilicity of polypropylene (PP) fabric surface can be improved by plasma treatment, it would obviously decay with the storage time. In this study, the graft polymerization of acrylamide (AAm) onto the surface of PP fabric was carried out by plasma pre-treatment and subsequently induced by UV-induce surface graft polymerization to improve the long term water adsorption ratio of the substrate. During the process, peroxides formed by the plasma treatment are the major factor responsible for initiating the graft polymerization. The amount of peroxide can be determined with good accuracy by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. Results indicated that the amounts of peroxides obviously increased with the plasma treated time and treat power, and the maximum concentration of peroxide can reach about 6:0 Â 10 À7 mol/cm 2 . However, the degree of grafting was not monotonous with increasing plasma treated power. The optimum processing condition was to apply 30 W power with 10 min of treatment to achieve the maximum surface grafting efficiency. Although the surface of PP fabric can be changed from hydrophobic to hydrophilic after plasma treatment, it would obviously age after 4 d of storage. By contrast, the UV-induce surface graft polymerization of PP can keep their hydrophilic property during the storage time after 7 d, due to the covalently grafted with hydrophilic monomer. [doi:10.1295/polymj.PJ2005183] KEY WORDS Plasma Treatment / Graft Polymerization / Water Adsorption Ratio Improvement / Peroxide Determined / Polypropylene (PP) fabric was widely used due to its cheapness, low density, excellent mechanical properties, and high porosity. However, the inert surface and lack of chemical polar groups of hydrophobic polymers, restricts their applications in some fields such as sanitary products, dressing, and biomaterials.1-5 Thus, several methods have been developed to modify surfaces of these polymers to improve their water adsorption ratio. [6][7][8][9] In which, the use of inner gas plasma treatment has been extensively studied to modify surface properties of polymer substrates. Free radicals are formed on the surface of substrate after plasma treatment. Peroxides are also generated at the same time when the free radicals are exposed to air.10 Thus, the water adsorption ratio of the surface exhibits the obviously decay effect during the storage time due to the reorientation of the hydrophilic group toward the bulk of the polymer. 11To achieve a stable modification surface, subsequently graft polymerization utilizing free radicals or peroxides generated by the plasma treatment was extensively adopted by many studies. 12-14The plasma composed of inorganic gas argon leads to implantation of atoms, radical generation, and etching reaction. There have been published quite a large number of works on the polymer surface modification by graft copolymerization utilizing free radicals or peroxide generated by the plasma treatment. So far, very few works have been reported on the relationship...

Production scale plasma modification of polypropylene baselayer for improved water management properties

“…33 The use of hexamethyl-disiloxane (HMDSO) fragmentation under plasma conditions has been studied extensively to achieve polymer layer depositions on various substrates. As an example, the successful modification of PP-fabrics could be achieved by HMDSO containing plasma and an increase in water wettability can be achieved.…”

Production, characterization and application of nanotechnology-based vegetable multi-component theospheres in nonwovens: A women's intimate hygiene approach

“…Group 1 was not submitted to any treatment; Group 2 was washed with distilled water in an ultrasound device for 12 hours; [49][50][51] and Group 3 was washed with 95% alcohol solution in a magnetic stirrer for 12 hours. 52,53 All the samples were kept at room temperature for 24 hours and were subsequently subjected to exactly the same impregnation processes. Thus, it was possible to determine whether the pretreatment results showed significant differences with the addition of VM-Theospheres in nonwovens.…”

Multifunctional Self-Powered Electronics Based on a Reusable Low-Cost Polypropylene Fabric Triboelectric Nanogenerator

“…On one hand, this pandemic causes collapses in the healthcare system, a global setback of the economy, and a shortage of healthcare supplies in many countries. On the other hand, however, the tremendous wasted masks generated during this pandemic provide rich resources as friction materials for TENGs for two reasons: (1) commercial FFRs or medical masks are made from PP fabric, and PP is electronegative with a high charge affinity, and (2) PP fabric consists of microfiber networks with a high specific area, which is promising for applications in high-performance triboelectric materials. Although several studies on the reuse of wasted masks have been reported, they mainly focus on using these as masks again .…”