Post-functionalization of plasma treated polycarbonate substrates: An efficient way to hydrophobic, oleophobic plastics

This work presents a new strategy of plasma treatment and post-functionalization of polycarbonate substrates in order to enhance their hydrophobic properties. While the plasma treatment is used to change the morphology and increase the roughness, the Huisgen reaction is used to decrease the surface energy or to add specific properties. Surface post-functionalization allows the covalent grafting of alkyl, aryl or perfluoroalkyl chains. The modified surfaces are investigated for their morphology, the observations performed show significant changes. The studies, made on the wettability, show important change in wettability with highly hydrophobic features (water apparent contact angle > 140°). Starting on a single polycarbonate surface, this multistep approach allows for the preparation of various polycarbonate surfaces with hydrophilic, oleophilic, highly hydrophobic, highly oleophobic or even fluorescent features to polycarbonate plastic surfaces.