Enhanced Metal Coating Adhesion by Surface Modification of 3D Printed PEKKs

Abstract

PEKK (polyether-ketone-ketone) polymer has been actively studied in applying electronic devices in satellites owing to its excellent light weight and thermal resistance. However, the limita-tion of metal coating to form on the PEKK surface is due to the high-volume resistivity and surface resistance. Here, we have investigated the correlations between the chemical treatment of the surface and adhesion strength between polymer–metal coating. Three-dimensional printed PEKK objects were manufactured and nickel was deposited on the surface by electroless plating. As the concentration of H2SO4 increased from 12.5 to 14.3 mol/L, the pore diameter showed a tendency to in-crease. However, as growing pore induced connecting each other, the pore size re-decreased from 15.1 to 18.0 mol/L. To control pore size and uniformity, we investigated the pore diameter of 3D printed PEKK as a function of treatment time and temperature. Uniform pores were observed at a temperature of 50 °C which were formed after 10 min and the average pore size was 0.28 μm. After H2SO4 swelling, samples were re-treated in the KMnO4-H3PO4 etching system for the hydrophilic group. KMnO4 broken C=C bonding and generated hydrophilic groups such as-COOH and-OH, the contact angle decreased from 64.7 to 51.1° compared with H2SO4 swelling. XPS survey spectra confirmed that not only breaking C=C bonding but also increasing hydrophilicity due to-OH,-C-,-SO3 and the catalyst absorption of Pd was improved. As a result of adhesive strength by ASTM D3359, compared with the H2SO4 swelling, the KMnO4-H3PO4 etching system showed 5B which is the best result in standard test methods by adhesive tape test and peeling amount on the tape was less than 0.01%.