The atmospheric pressure He- H 2 O plasma jet has been analyzed and its effects on the Kapton polyimide surface have been investigated in terms of discharge power effect. The polyimide surfaces before and after plasma treatment were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectrons spectroscopy (XPS) and contact angle. The results showed that, increasing the discharge power induces remarkable changes on the emission intensity, rotational and vibrational temperatures of He- H 2 O plasma jet. At the low discharge power ≤5.2 W, the contact angle analysis of the polyimide surface remarkably decrease owing to the abundant hydrophilic polar C=O and N–C=O groups as well as increase of surface roughness. Yet, plasma treatment at high discharge power ≥5.2 W results in a slight decrease of the surface wettability together with a reduction in the surface roughness and polar groups concentrations.

Two engineering thermoplastic polymers (polycarbonate, PC, and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene copolymer, ABS) were treated with atmospheric plasma torch using different treatment rates (1, 5 and 10 m/min). The modifications produced by the treatment were analysed by contact angle measurements, XPS, SEM and ATR-IR spectroscopy. Particular emphasiswas placed on the ageing (up to 30 days) after atmospheric plasma treatment on both polymers. The slower the atmospheric plasma treatment, the greater the wettability of the treated polymers. The decrease in water contact angle was mainly ascribed to a significant increase in oxygen content due to the formation of carboxylic and hydroxyl groups and a decrease in the carbon content on the polymer surfaces. After natural ageing, there was an increase in the water contact angle, although the values of the untreated polymer surface were never reached.

The influence of pigment shapes and pigment blends on the surface energy was investigated and compared with the surface chemistry of pigmented latex coatings. The coatings were made of different volume ratios of two pigments: plate-like kaolin clay pigment and prismatic precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) pigment. These were mixed together with carboxylated styrene–butadiene–acrylonitrile latex (SBA), and applied over nonabsorbent substrates as well as absorbent substrates. The composition of the surface of the coatings was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Two approaches were used to estimate the total surface energy and the components of the coatings: a conventional approach—“the Kaelble approach”—and a more modern approach—“the van Oss approach.” Pigment blends with different shapes and increments caused a change in the surface chemistry and the surface energy of the latex coatings. As the prismatic PCC pigment particles increased in the kaolin/SBA coating system, the SBA latex content at the coating surface increased and the total surface energy of the coating decreased. This is valid for both nonabsorbent as well as absorbent substrates. It was found that there was a strong correlation between the surface energy and the surface composition. The surface energy of the coatings estimated by the Van Oss approach was always lower than that estimated by the Kaelble approach. Colloidal interactions between pigment–pigment and/or pigment–binder were thought to play an essential role in determining the final coating surface energy and its components. Changes in the surface latex content and the surface energy due to the different pigment blends investigated were found to fit straight-line equations.

The surface energy of coating layers influences their final properties such as their ability to repel or absorb fluids. Recent work has shown that the substrate, due to absorption, can alter the surface chemistry of the top coating layer. However, the influence of substrate properties on coating surface energies is not reported in the literature.Three coatings, based on a pigment and a latex binder, are applied on three different substrates that differ in terms of absorption properties. The three coatings were also modified with a soluble polymer. Contact angle measurements of three different probe fluids were measured. These contact angles were used to estimate the polar, dispersive, and total surface energy of the coating layers. Surface energies were also determined for the latex and pigments.The contact angles and surface energies of the latex films and pigments agree with the expected results. Most of the results for the coating layers agree with the reported surface chemistry of these coatings. Large pigment systems on absorbent substrates have a high contact angle and low surface energy. These results agree with the expected results based on the surface chemistry reported in past work. The results for the fine pigment system had low contact angles and high surface energies and did not agree with the expected results. The contact angles may be influenced by the surface roughness of the coatings or the expected surface energy of a heterogeneous surface may not be a simple function of the surface composition.

The synthesis of ozone from oxygen in a cylindrical ozonizer operating under surface discharge conditions with a plasma electrode was studied. The conditions of ozone synthesis were optimized. The dependence of ozone concentration and specific energy consumption on gas pressure in the plasma electrode and on distance between the coils of a corona electrode was determined. The results were compared with data obtained with the use of classical surface barrier discharge.

This article focuses on recent advances in the understanding of industrial gas burners. Ribbon burners have been chosen as the focus of the review because of the advantages presented by the burner arrangement and burner performance. The ribbon burner configuration, because of its ability to provide large flame surface and flame stabilization, has a large range of stability as flow rate, equivalence ratio and reactant gas composition are varied. Discussed in detail is the application of ribbon burners in the surface modification, or flame treatment, of polymer films to increase the wettability of a polymer surface. Optimum treatment requires a spatially homogeneous post-flame reaction zone even with burners up to 3 m in length. For methane/air flames, the optimum equivalence ratio is near 0.93 where the active oxidizing-species concentration near the surface is a maximum. Chemical kinetic models of the impinging flame and surface oxidation chemistry of a polymer film are also discussed. The model predictions are in good qualitative agreement with the available understanding of the flame variables affecting surface treatment and the expected oxidized species on the polymer surface.

This paper reports on a special pilot coating and industrial printing trial designed to gain fundamental knowledge on ink adhesion failure on coated papers. We found that ink adhesion failure resulted in white spots without ink on the paper, referred to as uncovered areas and these spots gave print mottle problems. The white spots were due to two fundamentally different types of ink adhesion failure. One is the well-known ink rejection, which simply means that ink is not transferred to the surface. The other is a new type of ink adhesion failure, confirming a previous hypothesis suggested from laboratory observations. We refer to this as ink-lift-off adhesion failure, meaning that ink initially deposited on the paper surface becomes lifted off from the surface in a subsequent print unit. Adhesion failure by this mechanism was seen to occur more frequently than failure due to the well-known ink rejection.

An interpretation of solid surfaces is generated based on physical considerations and the laws of thermodynamics. Like the widely used Owens–Wendt (OW) method, the proposed method uses liquids for characterization. Each liquid provides an absolute lower bound on the surface energy with some uncertainty from measurement variations. If multiple liquids are employed, the largest lower bound is taken as the most accurate, with uncertainty due to measurement errors. The more liquids used, the more accurate is the greatest lower bound. This method links generalizations of the Good–Girifalco equation with a general thermodynamic inequality relating the three-interfacial tensions in a three-phase equilibrium system. The method always satisfies this inequality with better than a 65% certainty. However, the OW seldom, if ever, conforms to this inequality and even then, the degree of satisfaction is insignificant. A reconciliation of the two methods is proposed based on rescaling the OW surface energies to conform to the inequality. This enables interpretations of dispersion and polar components of the surface energy, which are thermodynamically self-consistent. The proposed method is also capable of dealing with material exchange between liquid and solid phases, when the surface tension and contact angle of the saturated liquids can be measured.