Surface Modification of Surface Wave-Excited Plasma-Treated Chloride-Isobutene Rubber for Adhesion Reduction

Abstract

Adhesion property of different materials at an interface has brought attention to many fields of technology such as tribology, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), construction and manufacturing system. In addition, varieties of plasma treatments for the adhesion control of rubbers are extensively studied. However, research about applying plasma treatment devices as a means of decreasing adhesion forces is scarce. This article describes the decrease in the adhesion force between a medical rubber, chloride-isobutene-isoprene rubber (CIIR), and a stainless-steel SUS440C by using oxygen surface wave-excited plasma (SWP) treatment. Various methods were used to measure the different adhesion forces following plasma treatment. We found that elastic modulus was increased from 15 to 38.8% after SWP treatment. Experimental results showed that the adhesion force is decreased by about 95–99.8% by using oxygen plasma treatments on CIIR and SUS440C. The different adhesion forces were explained based on the surface free energy and Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR).

Keywords:

• Adhesion
• Chloride-isobutene-isoprene (CIIR) rubber
• Contact angle
• FTIR
• Surface energy
• Surface wave-excited plasma (SWP)
• Wettability
• Young's modulus

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (No. 2011-0020027).