Plasma nitrogenation of polymer surfaces with a new type of combinatorial plasma-printing reactor

A new method for combinatorial area-selective polymer modification or deposition using DBD-type plasmas at atmospheric pressure (""plasma-printing"") is presented. Thereby a gradient of two gases perpendicular to the flow direction is established by triangular-shaped overlapping gas inlets. Design of this reactor allows generation of spot arrays with controlled gradients of physicochemical surface properties which is first applied by investigating the influence of H2 admixtures to N2-plasma-treatment of polymers. Formation of functional groups is quantitatively characterized by ATR FT-IR with preceding chemical derivatization using nucleophilic and electrophilic chemicals. It is shown that treatments using high gas flow velocities are more efficient than treatments with low gas speed. Also it is shown that direct plasma treatment leads to polymer surfaces with nucleophilic and electrophilic properties and that H2 content influences formation of both types of functionalities.