Surface cleaning of raw cotton fibers with atmospheric pressure air plasma

In this work, a possibility to use atmospheric pressure plasma treatment to clean cotton fibers surface was investigated. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) operating in air was used as plasma source. After plasma treatment, cotton fibers were characterized using several surface techniques: SEM, XPS, ATR-FTIR and zeta potential measurement; also wettability was evaluated using capillary height measurement. Results of investigation showed that plasma treatment primarily affects cuticle and primary wall of cotton which provides cleaning of the fibers surface. This caused increase of polar groups accessibility and better wettability of cotton samples. An attempt has been made to locate influence of plasma treatment on different structural layers of cotton fibers using different surface techniques. In addition, surface charge was investigated through measuring streaming potential and a connection was established between zeta potential and plasma treatment time. Furthermore, it was shown that measuring of zeta potential could be used as an additional technique to track changes and elucidate mechanisms of plasma treatment influence on cotton fibers.