Plasma treatment on cotton fabrics to enhance the adhesion of Reduced Graphene Oxide for electro-conductive properties

In this study, eco-friendly plasma pretreatment is introduced on grey cotton fabrics to enhance the surface properties and adhesion of Graphene Oxide (GO). The important plasma parameters such as power and working pressure are kept constant with various treatment times (5, 10, 20, and 60 min). The plasma-treated cotton fabrics are optimized by AFM, SEM, XPS and drop test. The XPS studies reveal that plasma treatment increases the oxygen functional groups on the grey cotton fabrics. The surface morphology (SEM and AFM) of the plasma-treated cotton fabrics reveals that increase in surface roughness which helps to improve the adhesion of GO. GO has been prepared by using modified Hummer's method. The structure and morphological studies of prepared GO are characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The SEM image shows sheet-like structure. Raman analysis reveals that GO contains D band and G band. The optimized plasma treated cotton fabrics are functionalized by GO solution using a dip dry cure method and then plasma pretreated GO coated fabric (PGO) is chemically converted by vapor reduction method using hydrazine hydrate to get Plasma pretreated Reduced Graphene Oxide (PRGO) for the restoration of a high electrical conductivity at the fabric surface. The morphology, phase purity and crystallinity of the raw PGO and PRGO coated cotton fabrics are analyzed by Raman studies, SEM, XRD, ATR-FTIR and I-V studies. Our results provide a way to develop PRGO based devices in biomedical applications, wearable healthcare electronics, defense, and fashion technology etc.