Increase of wettability of soft- and hardwoods using microwave plasma

The experiments presented in this paper deal with plasma surface treatment of various wood species in order to enhance their hydrophilic properties. As a plasma source we used atmospheric pressure microwave plasma jet—the surfatron. The changes on wood surface were evaluated using water uptake time and contact angle measurement. We investigated the influence of treatment time, discharge power, argon flow rate and effect of nitrogen and oxygen admixtures. The results showed that microwave plasma treatment was able to achieve significant improvement of wood wettability even after treatment time in a matter of seconds.