Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (2016) 75: 24715
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2016150585

Regular Article

Atmospheric pressure plasma assisted calcination of composite submicron fibers^*

¹ Department of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University in Bratislava,Mlynská dolina F2, 842 48 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
² CEPLANT, Department of Physical Electronics, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic

^a e-mail: veronika.medvecka@fmph.uniba.sk

Received: 30 November 2015
Revised: 25 May 2016
Accepted: 1 June 2016
Published online: 8 August 2016

Abstract

The plasma assisted calcination of composite organic/inorganic submicron fibers for the preparation of inorganic fibers in submicron scale was studied. Aluminium butoxide/polyvinylpyrrolidone fibers prepared by electrospinning were treated using low-temperature plasma generated by special type of dielectric barrier discharge, so called diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge (DCSBD) at atmospheric pressure in ambient air, synthetic air, oxygen and nitrogen. Effect of plasma treatment on base polymer removal was investigated by using Attenuated total reflectance – Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. Influence of working gas on the base polymer reduction was studied by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and CHNS elemental analysis. Changes in fibers morphology were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). High efficiency of organic template removal without any degradation of fibers was observed after plasma treatment in ambient air. Due to the low-temperature approach and short exposure time, the plasma assisted calcination is a promising alternative to the conventional thermal calcination.