Surface Modification of Polymer Composites through Cold Plasma A Green Technology with Applications towards Biological Relevance

Abstract

The surface is the first point of contact between the tissues and a biomaterial device newlinewhenever it is implanted in a living body and the water molecules are the first to reach the newlinesurface. In order to have a good cell-biomaterial interaction, it is therefore, necessary to newlinepromote adhesion of cells to the substrate. Surface properties namely topography, chemistry newlineand free energy are the essential factors to be considered for improved cell interaction newlinefeatures. It has also been demonstrated that materials with rougher surfaces show better bio newlineresponsivity. Thus, tailoring the surface properties is generally warranted to render newlinebiomaterials with better accessibility to cell adhesion receptors. Of the several approaches utilized for surface tailoring of polymeric composites; newlinecold/ nonthermal plasma technology has blossomed into an effectual, facile and economical newlinemethodology and gained thrust lately. Cold plasma treatment neither warrants high newlinetemperature nor requires huge amounts of reagents, the processing time is shorter and no newlineby-products are formed; thereby validating that this approach is environmentally more newlinebenign. Furthermore, this technique is ideal because the depth of deposition of plasma newlineinduced treatments is upto a few nanometres only while the attributes of the material remain newlineundeterred. The treatment is more appealing for materials intended towards biomedical newlineapplications since it guarantees a higher degree of bio-activity and bio-selectivity. introduces the concept of plasma, in general, and cold plasma, in newlineparticular. The need for surface modification of polymers has been discussed at length. The newlineimportance of cold plasma over conventional methods is also discussed. The different newlinestrategies of surface modification and the applications of cold plasma in non-biomedical and newlinepharmaceutical sectors have been elucidated. The objective of the present thesis work is newlinealso given. newline