Influence of Chemical Precleaning on the Plasma Treatment Efficiency of Aluminum by RF Plasma Pencil

• Published in: Plasma science & technology 2016-04, Vol.18 (4), p.430-437
• Main Authors: Prysiazhnyi, Vadym, Slavicek, Pavel, Mikmekova, Eliska, Klima, Milos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activation; Aluminum; Atmospheric pressure; atmospheric pressure plasma; chemical precleaning; Morphology; Pencils; plasma jet; Radio frequencies; Surface chemistry; surface processing; surface treatment; Wettability; 光谱测量; 化学前处理; 大气压等离子体; 射频等离子体; 扫描电子显微镜; 等离子体处理; 铅笔; 铝表面
• ISSN: 1009-0630
• DOI: 10.1088/1009-0630/18/4/17

This paper is aimed to show the influence of initial chemical pretreatment prior to subsequent plasma activation of aluminum surfaces.The results of our study showed that the state of the topmost surface layer（i.e.the surface morphology and chemical groups）of plasma modified aluminum significantly depends on the chemical precleaning.Commonly used chemicals（isopropanol,trichlorethane,solution of Na OH in deionized water）were used as precleaning agents.The plasma treatments were done using a radio frequency driven atmospheric pressure plasma pencil developed at Masaryk University,which operates in Ar,Ar/O_2 gas mixtures.The effectiveness of the plasma treatment was estimated by the wettability measurements,showing high wettability improvement already after 0.3 s treatment.The effects of surface cleaning（hydrocarbon removal）,surface oxidation and activation（generation of OH groups）were estimated using infrared spectroscopy.The changes in the surface morphology were measured using scanning electron microscopy.Optical emission spectroscopy measurements in the near-to-surface region with temperature calculations showed that plasma itself depends on the sample precleaning procedure.