Plasma treatments cleaning effect

The establishment of clean and efHcient atmospheric plasma technologies to replace traditional methods to clean, create depositions of thin films, and functionalize surfaces of metal substrates constitutes a very critical area of current research and development. The increasing concern for the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable technologies has led to a focus on cold plasma technology, which represents an efficient alternative. Atmospheric plasma treatments can effect the removal of oil from aluminum surfaces, for example. This surface conditioning can also act as a preparation step for thin Him deposition of monomers such as hexamethyldisiloxane to achieve corrosion protection. This interfacial layer can also be functionalized to favor the adhesion of additional polymer layers. 

O2 plasma treatment was also effective for the improvement of photocatalytic activity. Although the improvement was not as high as H2+Ar or N2+Ar plasma treatments, O2 plasma treated films show photocatalytic activities up to 1.3 times higher under UV-A and up to 1.7 times higher under fluorescent light than an untreated film. According to ESCA analysis, the improvements seem to attribute to the cleaning effect of O2 plasma. 

A useful side effect of the radiation and especially the plasma treatments is the cleaning of the fibre surface. Fibre lubricants, sizing agents, soil and other residuals are burned off This provides, combined with the creation of reactive radicals on the fibre surface, better wetting properties and a higher adhesion of coatings and laminations. Anti-felting finishes for wool are also achievable with plasma treatments. 

As was pointed out in the introduction, the plasma treatment of the polymer membranes becomes an interesting issue for three reasons the technique is fast, effective, and meets most of the ecological regulations for clean technology. When plasma acts on any polymer surface, two competing processes can take place ... 

In general plasma treatment can have the following effects on the material s surface cleaning, activation, etching, and coating [1]. 

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