TY - JOUR
T1 - Rapid hydrophilization of model polyurethane/urea (PURPEG) polymer scaffolds using oxygen plasma treatment
AU - Zaplotnik, Rok
AU - Vesel, Alenka
AU - Primc, Gregor
AU - Liu, Xiangyu
AU - Chen, Kevin C.
AU - Wei, Chiju
AU - Xu, Kaitian
AU - Mozetic, Miran
N1 - Funding Information:
The research was funded by Slovenian Research Agency ARRS (Project Grant No. P2-0082), National Science Foundation of China (NSFC Project No. 21274083) and bilateral project Bi-CN-10-01 and 10-1 (2014).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 by the authors.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Polyurethane/urea copolymers based on poly(ethylene glycol) (PURPEG) were exposed to weakly ionized, highly reactive low-pressure oxygen plasma to improve their sorption kinetics. The plasma was sustained with an inductively coupled radiofrequency generator operating at various power levels in either E-mode (up to the forward power of 300 W) or H-mode (above 500 W). The treatments that used H-mode caused nearly instant thermal degradation of the polymer samples. The density of the charged particles in E-mode was on the order of 1016 m-3, which prevented material destruction upon plasma treatment, but the density of neutral O-atoms in the ground state was on the order of 1021 m-3. The evolution of plasma characteristics during sample treatment in E-mode was determined by optical emission spectroscopy; surface modifications were determined by water adsorption kinetics and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; and etching intensity was determined by residual gas analysis. The results showed moderate surface functionalization with hydroxyl and carboxyl/ester groups, weak etching at a rate of several nm/s, rather slow activation down to a water contact angle of 30° and an ability to rapidly absorb water.
AB - Polyurethane/urea copolymers based on poly(ethylene glycol) (PURPEG) were exposed to weakly ionized, highly reactive low-pressure oxygen plasma to improve their sorption kinetics. The plasma was sustained with an inductively coupled radiofrequency generator operating at various power levels in either E-mode (up to the forward power of 300 W) or H-mode (above 500 W). The treatments that used H-mode caused nearly instant thermal degradation of the polymer samples. The density of the charged particles in E-mode was on the order of 1016 m-3, which prevented material destruction upon plasma treatment, but the density of neutral O-atoms in the ground state was on the order of 1021 m-3. The evolution of plasma characteristics during sample treatment in E-mode was determined by optical emission spectroscopy; surface modifications were determined by water adsorption kinetics and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; and etching intensity was determined by residual gas analysis. The results showed moderate surface functionalization with hydroxyl and carboxyl/ester groups, weak etching at a rate of several nm/s, rather slow activation down to a water contact angle of 30° and an ability to rapidly absorb water.
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U2 - 10.3390/polym8040144
DO - 10.3390/polym8040144
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84964659779
SN - 2073-4360
VL - 8
JO - Polymers
JF - Polymers
IS - 4
M1 - 144
ER -