Investigation on the effect of acid etching duration on adhesive bonding of E-glass/Epoxy composites to polyethylene

The surface treatment is a method to increase the bond strength of two different materials. In this research, the acid etching is used for the surface treatment of Polyethylene in order to improve the bonding strength of Polyethylene and E-glass/Epoxy composites. An experimental study is conducted to present the effect of the surface treatment duration on the bonding strength of these materials. The wettability is an indirect indicator of adhesion, because it increases the surface roughness and decreases the chemical contamination. Therefore, the contact angle test was used to investigate the bond strength indirectly. According to results, by increasing the duration of surface treatment, the contact angle was decreased. Decreasing the contact angle is a sign of increasing the adhesive bonding strength. By changing the acid exposure time, it was found that 120 minutes acid etching exposure time presented the lowest contact angle on the surface of Polyethylene, i.e., the highest bonding strength.