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CF4 plasma treatment of a Teflon-like (1,1,1,2 tetrafluoroethane, TFE) chemical spray deposited on paper resulted in an increased level of elemental fluorine on the paper surface. However, TFE molecules undergo bond cleavage and ionization in the presence of the RF-CF4 plasma environment. The abundant fluorine radicals grafted onto the paper surface, via the substitution and opening of the bonds in the cellulose polymers, yielded CFx (x: 1–3) functionalities, as observed by XPS and ATR-FTIR analyses. Lower power (100 W) and treatment times (0.5 min) were sufficient to obtain very highly fluorinated surfaces. The change in the morphology of the surface by the exposure to plasma was complicated because the localized deposition and re-deposition of the plasma-generated molecules on the paper were superimposed on the surface reactions and degradation (etching) at the paper surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plasma duty cycle, in addition to power and exposure time, affects the surface atomic composition of thiophene plasma-treated paper. The elemental carbon and sulfur concentration increased from 56.7% to 78.6% and 0% to 13.4%, respectively, while oxygen decreased from 43.3% to 8.0% with the plasma treatment. Relatively large variations in the deposited film-like layer composition could be realized by changing plasma external parameters. The high-resolution (HR) C1s spectra of the thiophene plasma-treated paper clearly exhibit plasma-induced rearrangements and new sulfur functionalities on the paper surface. After a five-hourex situdoping of thiophene plasma-treated papers with iodine, conductivity ranging from δ = 4.2E-2 to 4.1 S/cm was obtained. The low relative F/C atomic ratio after TFAA derivatization indicates that no hydroxyl groups were present on the paper surface after the thiophene plasma treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]