This unique book covers the physical and chemical aspects of plasma chemistry with polymers and gives new insights into the interaction of physics and chemistry of nonthermal plasmas and their applications in materials science for physicists and chemists.

The properties and characteristics of plasmas, elementary (collision) processes in the gas phase, plasma surface interactions, gas discharge plasmas and technical plasma sources, atmospheric plasmas, plasma diagnostics, polymers and plasmas, plasma polymerization, post-plasma processes, plasma, and wet-chemical processing, plasma-induced generation of functional groups, and the chemical reactions on these groups along with a few exemplary applications are discussed in this comprehensive but condensed state-of-the-art book on plasma chemistry and its dependence on plasma physics.

While plasma physics, plasma chemistry, and polymer science are often handled separately, the aim of the authors is to harmoniously join the physics and chemistry of low-pressure and atmospheric-pressure plasmas with polymer surface chemistry and polymerization and to compare such chemistry with classic chemistry.

Readers will find in these chapters

• Interaction of plasma physics and chemistry in plasmas and at the surface of polymers;
• Explanation and interpretation of physical and chemical mechanisms on plasma polymerization and polymer surface modification;
• Introduction of modern techniques in plasma diagnostics, surface analysis of solids, and special behavior of polymers on exposure to plasmas;
• Discussion of the conflict of energy-rich plasma species with permanent energy supply and the much lower binding energies in polymers and alternatives to avoid random polymer decomposition
• Technical applications such as adhesion, cleaning, wettability, textile modification, coatings, films, etc. New perspectives are explained about how to use selective and mild processes to allow post-plasma chemistry on non-degraded polymer surfaces.

Audience

Physicists, polymer chemists, materials scientists, industrial engineers in biomedicine, coatings, printing, etc.

Jörg Florian Friedrich is a chemist at the Technical University of Berlin. He has worked in the fields of plasma chemistry, polymer chemistry, and polymer and surface analytics since 1972 and has published several books on these topics. His special interest is the clarification and explanation of chemistry in plasma and at the surface of polymers.

Jürgen Meichsner is a physicist at the University of Greifswald. He has worked in the field of low-temperature plasma physics and plasma surface interaction, e.g., plasma polymerization and polymer surface modification/functionalization since 1977. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and a few book contributions. His special interest is the diagnostics of molecular low-temperature plasmas and the analysis of thin organic films and surfaces.