Influence of Differently Structured Aluminium–Polypropylene Interfaces on Adhesion

Polar groups were introduced on polypropylene surfaces for increasing the surface energy and the peel strength to evaporated aluminium layers. Three kinds of plasma processes were used for introducing such functional groups to polyolefin surfaces: low-pressure radio-frequency (RF) O2 plasma exposure, atmospheric-pressure dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) treatment in air, and the deposition of allylamine plasma polymer. The amino groups of the allylamine plasma polymer were also used as anchoring points for chemical introduction of covalently bonded spacer molecules equipped with reactive endgroups. Thus, silanol endgroups of a covalently bonded spacer were able to interact with the evaporated metal layer. The Al–PP composites achieved a maximal peel strength of 470 N/m by exposing the polymer to the lowpressure O2 plasma and 500 N/m on exposure to the atmospheric DBD plasma. After allylamine plasma polymerization and grafting of spacers, the peel strength was usually higher than 1500 N/m and the composi...