Enhancing Membrane Adhesion to Polymeric Substrates via Plasma Treatment

作者：Rajan Jain, Christina Carbrello, Kathy Youngbear, Sean Foley, Rong Long, Yifu Ding · 发表于：ACS Applied Polymer Materials · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1021/acsapm.5c04051 · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Surface Modification and Superhydrophobicity、Membrane Separation Technologies、Membrane Separation and Gas Transport

High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Ensuring strong adhesion between porous polymeric membranes and supporting substrates is critical for the reliability and functionality of membrane devices. However, due to the innate low surface energy of polymers, achieving strong chemical bonding between such materials remains challenging. In addition, the small-pore size of membranes often limits effective pore intrusion (necessary for achieving effective mechanical interlocking) by polymer adhesives during high-throughput manufacturing. Plasma treatment is commonly used to modify the surface energy of polymers to improve adhesion and mechanical properties of composite systems. However, it remains unexplored whether the method is effective in improving the adhesion of surfaces containing nanoscale pores as found in membranes. Herein, we demonstrate that adhesion between poly(ethersulfone) (PES) membranes with 20 and 200 nm pore sizes and polypropylene (PP) substrates is enhanced by low-pressure plasma treatment (power: 30 W, duration: 60 s, gas flow rate: 30 cm 3 /min) of the two surfaces. Thermomechanical bonding between the treated surfaces is performed, and the adhesion behavior is quantified by a T-peel test and imaging analysis. For the 200 nm PES membranes and PP substrate, the adhesion after plasma treatment (152–405 N/m), measured by the interfacial fracture toughness, exhibits an improvement by 0.12 to 2 times in comparison to untreated control samples (114–156 N...