DBD plasma treatment is a common route for surface modification with regards to adhesion properties e.g. in printing and lamination processes. The objective here is to investigate the ink-substrate interaction when employing a plasma discharge onto the polymeric substrate surface prior to the printing operation. The surface modification event clearly impacts the wetting properties and in turn ink adhesion properties after printing. Furthermore, the greater wettability at higher plasma dosage is due to the more polar functional groups present at the treated surface at high production rates during surface treatment and printing. The ink-substrate adhesion is dependent on the plasma dosage (watt density). At too low treatment level, lower oxidation and inferior wetting behaviour, caused a delamination failure between the water-based ink and the polymeric substrate surface. The adhesion properties, measured in a manual peel test, were clearly improved at higher plasma dosage as a consequence of the greater wetting and oxidation. There was a clear relationship between treatment level (surface chemistry and surface energy) and adhesion properties discerned, which suggests that it is the Debye interaction forces between the polar functional groups that are contributing to the bond strength between the ink and the plasma-treated substrate.

Investigation of DBD plasma discharge treatment on bond strength

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ACS Fall 2022

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