Plasma Polymerization of Acrylic Acid by Atmospheric Pressure Nitrogen Plasma Jet for Biomedical Applications

Polyacrylic acid thin films have been deposited by an original and fast technique to grow organic coatings: a pulsed-arc atmospheric pressure plasma jet. Liquid acrylic acid was introduced in the nitrogen plasma jet and OES was used to measure the fragmentation of the precursor. The films were characterized by XPS, FTIR and SEM analyses before and after soaking in water. The water stability was also investigated by weight loss measurement. A high retention of carboxylic moieties, i.e. functional groups of the monomer has been observed for coatings deposited under mild conditions for the jet (low frequency and high jet speed). These films have been used for cell adhesion using human ovarian carcinoma cells (NIH:OVCAR-3). Good results have been obtained depending on the plasma parameters, showing that atmospheric pressure plasma jet is a promising technique to grow organic thin films for biomedical applications.