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    Atmospheric Plasma and UV Polymerisation for Developing Sustainable Anti-Adhesive Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Surfaces

    Year: 2023

    Journal: Coatings, Volume 13, 2023-04, page 715

    Authors: Caykara, Tugce; Fernandes, Sara; Braga, Adelaide; Rodrigues, Joana; Rodrigues, Ligia Raquel; Silva, Carla Joana

    Keywords: surface modification; grafting; hydrophilicity; plasma; UV polymerisation; wettability

    Enhancing the hydrophilicity of polymeric materials is an important step for achieving anti-adhesiveness. Thus, in this study, atmospheric plasma as a pre-treatment was combined with a UV grafting process to obtain a durable surface modification on polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The most promising conditions for the atmospheric plasma process were found to be 15 kW power and 4 m/min speed, leading to a contact angle reduction from 70 ± 6° to approximately 30°. However, it was observed that these values increased over time due to the ageing and washing of the PET surface, ultimately causing it to recover its initial contact angle. Therefore, the plasma-pre-treated PET samples were further modified through a UV grafting process using sodium acrylate (NaAc) and 3-sulfopropyl acrylate potassium salts (KAc). The grafted acrylate PET samples exhibited contact angles of 8 ± 3° and 28 ± 13° for NaAc and KAc, respectively, while showing durability in ageing and washing tests. The dry film thicknesses for both samples were found to be 28 ± 2 μm. Finally, the anti-adhesive properties of the NaAc- and KAc-treated surfaces were evaluated using an Escherichia coli expressing YadA, an adhesive protein from Yersinia. The modified PET surfaces were highly effective in reducing bacterial adhesion by more than 90%.
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