Fabricating a reactive surface on the fibroin film by a room-temperature plasma jet array for biomolecule immobilization

A simple dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) jet array was designed with a liquid electrode and helium gas. The characteristics of the jet array discharge and the preliminary polymerization with acrylic acid (AA) monomer were presented. The plasma reactor can produce a cold jet array with a gas temperature lower than 315 K, using an applied discharge power between 6 W and 30 W (Vdis ? Idis). A silk fibroin film (SFF) was modified using the jet array and AA monomer, and the treated SFF samples were characterized by atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and contact angle (CA). The deposition rate of the poly acrylic acid (PAA) was able to reach 300 nm/min, and the surface roughness and energy increased with the AA flow rate. The FTIR results indicate that the modified SFF had more carboxyl groups (-COOH) than the original SFF. This latter characteristic allowed the modified SFF to immobilize more quantities of antimicrobial peptide (AP, LL-37) which inhibited the Escherichia coli (E. Coli) effectively.