Influence of oxygen plasma treatment parameters on poly(vinylidenefluoride) electrospun fiber mats wettability

Abstract

tElectrospun poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) fiber mats find applications in an increasing number ofareas, such as battery separators, filtration and detection membranes, due to their excellent properties.However, there are limitations due to the hydrophobic nature and low surface energy of PVDF. In thiswork, oxygen plasma treatment has been applied in order to modify the surface wettability of PVDFfiber mats and superhydrophilic PVDF electrospun membranes have been obtained. Further, plasmatreatment does not significantly influences fiber average size (∼400 ± 200 nm), morphology, electroac-tive -phase content (∼80-85%) or the degree of crystallinity (Xcof 42 ± 2%), allowing to maintain theexcellent physical-chemical characteristics of PVDF. Plasma treatment mainly induces surface chemistrymodifications, such as the introduction of oxygen and release of fluorine atoms that significantly changespolymer membrane wettability by a reduction of the contact angle of the polymer fibers and an overalldecrease of the surface tension of the membranes.