Effect of atmospheric pressure plasma treatment on the wettability and ageing behavior of metal material surfaces

Atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) applications have started to come to the fore today due to their fast and stable applicability to material surfaces and many advantages over plasma applications made under vacuum. It is possible to improve the surface energies, adhesion behaviour and surface mechanical properties of materials with APP. However, the changes obtained are not permanent since the surface tends to return to its untreated original state after plasma treatment. In this study, the wettability of APP treated metal surfaces, ageing behaviour and storage conditions that can delay the return of the surface to its untreated initial state were investigated. While one type of material (H300LAD), two different plasma treatments (cold and hot) and three different plasma treatment numbers (1, 2 and 3 times) were determined as test parameters; two different ambient conditions such as air and water (1, 10 and 60 minutes) were chosen as the storage conditions that can delay the return of the plasma treated surfaces to their original state. In addition, the effects of temperature on the ageing time were investigated for two different temperature values (-20 degrees C and 30 degrees C). The contact angles of the APP treated surfaces were measured at certain intervals during 5 days. And the effects of the applied plasma type, plasma treatment number, the storage condition in which the samples were kept and the temperature on the ageing behaviour were evaluated and the conditions that could delay the ageing time were investigated. The results show that ageing is greatly affected by the type of plasma applied to the surfaces, the storage condition in which the samples are kept and the temperature.