Surface modification of a polyester non-woven with a dielectric barrier discharge in air at medium pressure

In this paper, a polyester non-woven is plasma treated with a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in air at medium pressure (5.0 kPa) and at different discharge powers. Results show that an increasing power leads to a better plasma treatment of the sample. The barrier discharge is characterized by a voltage and current waveform, by a Lissajous figure and by Lichtenberg figures. The surface properties of the plasma treated samples are examined using X-ray photoelectron microscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XPS analysis reveals that surface oxidation by the formation of oxygen-containing functional groups enhances the surface wettability. SEM analysis shows that the sample is not etched by the used barrier discharge. This is due to the low surface energy density of the DBD used in this paper. Therefore, a DBD in air at medium pressure provides an efficient modification of the chemical surface properties of textiles without destroying the physical structure.