Grafting acrylamide onto PP nonwoven fabrics by plasma

Polypropylene(PP) melt-blown nonwoven fabric was treated by atmospheric-pressure air plasma,and subsequently the sample was grafted using acrylamide as monomer in 15% acrylamide water solution.Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(ATR-FTIR) confirmed the grafting of polyacrylamide(PAM) onto the surface of the nonwoven sample.Grafting with PAM made the plasma-treated sample durably hydrophilic,its contact angle decreased from 135°(original sample) to 110°and remained unchanged after storage,while the contact angle of untreated sample reverted to 130°.Scanning electron microscopy indicated that plasma treatment had significantly etched the surface of PP fiber and there were projections on the fiber of grafted-sample.