SURFACE MODIFICATION OF FABRICS USING A ONE-ATMOSPHERE GLOW-DISCHARGEPLASMA TO IMPROVE FABRIC WETTABILITY

In industrial applications, a steady-state glow discharge capable of o perating at one atmosphere would allow many plasma-related surface mod ification processes to be done on the production line, rather than in expensive vacuum systems that force batch processing. In this paper, w e report some encouraging results from the plasma surface treatment of polypropylene meltblown nonwovens in the UTK one-atmosphere glow disc harge plasma reactor. This reactor generates a large volume (up to 2.4 liters), low power (less than 150 watts), uniform glow discharge plas ma in a parallel plate configuration with oval electrodes of 213 cm(2) face area, the lower electrode being covered with a 3.2 mm thick insu lating Pyrex surface. The plates are set up in an enclosed box that ma kes it possible to control the working gas used, and the spacing betwe en the plates can be varied. This reactor is energized by a custom-mad e high impedance kilohertz power supply capable of supplying up to 5 k ilowatts of kilohertz power at RMS voltages up to 10 kV, and over a fr equency range from 1 to 100 kHz. Exposing a wide variety of polymer fa brics reveals that the wettability, wickability, printability, and sur face contact angle of the materials are significantly changed in a dir ection that may lead to new uses for these materials.