Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. (2016) 75: 24714
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2016150593

Regular Article

Enhancement of carbon-steel peel adhesion to rubber blend using atmospheric pressure plasma^*

¹ CEPLANT, Department of Physical Electronics, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
² Department of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University,Mlynská Dolina F2, 842 48 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
³ Vipo a.s., Gen. Svobodu 1069/4, 958 01 Partizánske, Slovak Republic

^a e-mail: krskova@sci.muni.cz

Received: 1 December 2015
Revised: 7 April 2016
Accepted: 8 April 2016
Published online: 8 August 2016

Abstract

The surface of carbon-steel plates was modified by non-equilibrium plasma of diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge (DCSBD) in order to improve the adhesive properties to the NR (natural rubber) green rubber compound. The effect of different treatment times as well as different input power and frequency of supplied high voltage was investigated. The samples were characterized using contact angle and surface free energy measurement, measurement of adhesive properties, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Surface chemical composition was studied by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Significant increase in wettability was observed even after 2 s of plasma exposure. The surface modification was confirmed also by peel test, where the best results were obtained for 6 s of plasma treatment. In addition the ageing effect was studied to investigate the durability of modification, which is crucial for the industrial applications.