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Grafting of acrylic acid onto microwave plasma-treated polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) substrates

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) has limited use in biomedical applications due to its poor wettability and low adhesion strength. Enhancing these properties through modification via plasma treatment coupled with grafting can further improve its surface properties ideal for biomedical applications. In this study, hydrophilic PTFE samples were successfully realized using a modified 2.45 GHz microwave oven as the plasma treatment device followed by grafting copolymerization using acrylic acid (AAc). This resulted to an increase in surface free energy (SFE) where samples subjected to air plasma treatment and AAc grafting exhibited the largest increase in SFE of 58 mJ m−2 compared to 17 mJ m−2 for the untreated samples. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed new functional groups in the O1s and C1s regions of PTFE after plasma treatment and grafting. Atomic force microscopy analysis showed increase in surface roughness with the largest value of 67.7 nm found in air plasma-treated and grafted samples compared to 20.9 nm for the untreated PTFE sample. The plasma-treated and grafted PTFE surfaces did not exhibit hydrophobic recovery during a 7 d observation period as compared to plasma-treated samples only. The effective combination of plasma treatment and grafting process would broaden potential applications of PTFE as a biomaterial.