Inducing hydrophobic surface on polyurethane synthetic leather by atmospheric pressure plasma

This study investigates the use of atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) treatment for improving surface hydrophobicity of polyurethane (PU) synthetic leather with hydrophobic organosilane precursor. The precursor was deposited on the synthetic leather surface by means of APP treatment regarded as an effective, simple, and single-step low pollution method. The result showed that under a particular combination of the experimental parameters, a hydrophobic surface was achieved on the APP treated sample with contact angle of 94 °. Moreover, the hydrophobic surface is stable for at least 30 days after APP treatment.