Richard Krumpolec

Atmospheric dry hydrogen plasma reduction of inkjet-printed flexible graphene oxide electrodes

This study concerns a low-temperature method for dry hydrogen plasma reduction of inkjet-printed flexible graphene oxide (GO) electrodes, an approach compatible with processes envisaged for the manufacture of flexible electronics. The processing of GO to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was performed in 1-64 s, and sp2 /sp2 +sp3 carbon concentration increased from approximately 20 % to 90 %. Since the plasma reduction was associated with an etching effect, the optimal reduction time occurred between 8 and 16 s. The surface showed good mechanical stability when deposited on polyethylene terephthalate flexible foils and significantly lower sheet resistance after plasma reduction. This method for dry plasma reduction could be important for large-area hydrogenation and reduction of GO flexible surfaces, with present and potential applications in a wide variety of emerging technologies.

Continuous plasma-chemical processing of fabrics at atmospheric pressure

Many textile finishing operations use wet processing techniques with a detrimental impact on the environment. In addition, the wet processes use approximately 60% of the energy consumed in the textile industry. The use of non-equilibrium atmospheric-pressure plasmas is emerging as an environmentally attractive alternative for the safe and economical surface treatment of fabrics. Since the growth rates of nonwovens production are extremely high, when compared with the conventional textiles industry, the novel plasma techniques for nonwovens surface hydrophilization are of particular interest, and there is an urgent need for the development of efficient, robust and cost-effective plasma treaters capable of in-line operation at 100-1000 m/min nonwovens processing speeds.