| Abstract
| - Cold low-pressure argon plasma treatments brought about the surface functionalization of high-density polyethylene plates. Among the introduced groups, hydroxyls were reacted with (NPCl2)3 and (NPCl2)n, allowing surface grafting of the phosphazenes. Residual unreacted P−Cl groups underwent successive substitution reactions with trifluoroethanol and heptadecafluorononanol, thus changing surface properties of polyethylene samples.
- In this paper, we present a new strategy to functionalize the surface of high-density polyethylene platesusing a cold plasma technique and chlorinated phosphazenes as coupling agents. The clean surface ofpolyethylene samples was modified by argon plasma treatments to introduce polar groups (e.g., CO,COOR, OR, OH, etc.); the free hydroxylic functions thus introduced were successively reacted with(NPCl2)3 and (NPCl2)n to graft these substrates onto the surface of the polymer samples through theformation of strong covalent Cl−P−O−HDPE bonds. The residual unreacted chlorines, still present inthe phosphazenes, were eventually substituted with alkoxy substituents (e.g., trifluoroethanol andheptadecafluorononanol) according to the classical nucleophilic substitution reaction of both cyclic andpolymeric phosphazene materials. In this way, surface features of polyethylene samples could be deeplymodified in a rather general and easy way.
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