Carbon Fiber Surface Modification by Plasma Treatment for Interface Adhesion Improvements of Aerospace Composites

This paper is focused on the processing of thermoplastic composite materials obtained from carbon fibers (CFs) treated by plasma assisted techniques. The treatments employed in this work were the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD), which is done at atmospheric pressure, involving lower energies and the Plasma Immersion Ion Implantation (PIII), which is performed at low pressure, involving higher energies. After the treatments, samples characterizations were performed to determine which treatment is most effective to get better physico-chemical CF surface properties. The techniques employed in this work in order to evaluate the surface treatment were: scanning electron microscopy (SEM); atomic force microscopy (AFM) Raman spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Treated and untreated CFs/Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) composites were processed by hot-compression molding technique. These composites were evaluated by interlaminar shear tests (ILSS). After analyzing the results, it was found that the treatments increased the CF roughness and caused slight changes in the CF structure. In addition, there was an increase in the shear strength of the composites obtained from treated fibers by both plasma processes. In conclusion, DBD and PIII treatments are effective tools for improving adhesion between CF and the polymeric matrix.