Plasma treatment is one of the most promising tools to control surface properties of materials tailored for biomedical application. Among a variety of processing conditions, such as the nature of the working gas and time of treatment, discharge type is rarely studied, because it is mainly fixed by equipment used. This study aimed to investigate the effect of discharge type (direct vs. alternated current) using air as the working gas on plasma treatment of poly(ethylene terephthalate) films, in terms of their surface chemical structure, morphology and properties using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and contact angle measurements. The effect of the observed changes in terms of subsequent chitosan immobilization on plasma-treated films was also evaluated. The ability of native, plasma-treated and chitosan-coated films to support adhesion and growth of mesenchymal stem cells was studied to determine the practicability of this approach for the biomedical application of poly(ethylene terephthalate) films.

A procedure was developed for the determination of the adhesion characteristics of the modified surface of thin polymer films, including those treated in a low-temperature plasma, with the use of the...

Literature on the modification of the natural polymer chitosan using high-energy chemistry methods (treatment by a low-temperature plasma, with an electron beam, energetic ions, or γ-iradiation) has...

The effect of treatment in a low-pressure dc discharge on the surface properties of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) films modified at the anode and cathode was examined. It was found that the anode treatment of the films considerably improves the adhesive properties of the polymer and makes it possible to obtain substantially lower values of the contact angle and higher values of the work of adhesion and surface energy than in the case of other PTFE surface modification techniques. By means of IR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, it was shown that discharge treatment at the anode and cathode noticeably increases the amount of oxygen-containing groups on the surface of the films.

The contact properties, chemical structure and surface morphology of poly(ethylene terephthalate) films modified by direct-current discharge at the cathode and anode have been studied. A substantial improvement in wettability and an increase in total surface energy and its polar term, which are retained upon storage in air at ambient conditions, have been shown. The change in the chemical structure of the plasma-modified films has been studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and the formation of a significant amount of oxygen-containing groups on the surface has been demonstrated. The investigation of the modified films by atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy has provided revealed a change in morphology of the surface and an increase in its roughness.