Influence of moisture regain of aramid fibers on effects of atmospheric pressure plasma treatment on improving adhesion with epoxy

One difference between a low-pressure plasma treatment and an atmospheric pressure plasma treatment is that in the atmosphere, the substrate material may contain significant quantities of moisture, which could potentially influence the effects of the plasma treatment. To investigate how the existence of moisture affects atmospheric pressure plasma treatment, aramid fibers (Twaron 1000) with three different moisture regains (0.5, 4.5, and 5.5%) were treated by an atmospheric pressure plasma jet for 3 s at a gas flow rate of 8 L/min, a treatment head temperature of 100 degrees C, and a power of 10 W. The scanning electron microscopy analysis showed no observable surface morphology change for the plasma treated samples. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis showed the oxygen contents of the 0.5 and 4.5% moisture regain groups increased from that of the control, although the opposite was true for the 5.5% moisture regain group. The advancing contact angles of the treated fibers decreased about 8 degrees-16 degrees whereas their receding contact angles decreased about 17 degrees-27 degrees. The interfacial shear strengths of the treated fibers as measured using microbond pull-out tests were more than doubled when the moisture regain was 4.5 or 5.5%, whereas it increased by 58% when the moisture regain was 0.5%. In addition, no significant difference in single fiber tensile strength was observed among the plasma treated samples and the control sample. Therefore, we concluded that moisture regain promoted the plasma treatment effect in the improvement of the adhesion property of aramid fibers to epoxy. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.