“…More importantly, cold plasmas are used to treat polymeric surfaces without damaging or degrading bulk polymeric chains, 20,21 thus retaining their bulk macroscopic properties. Typically, a cold plasma 22,23 operates by grafting chemical groups 24,25 and depositing monomers 26,27 on the treated material, thus promoting chemical and physical etching at the nanoscales. A cold oxygen plasma has been employed to treat PTFE, suggesting that the resulting nanostructures were due to etching, 28 while surface modifications of PTFE have been studied using atmospheric pressure plasma-grafted polymerization, 29 and the modified Wilhelmy balance technique.…”