Sulfonated PEEK Characteristic after Various Surface Cleaning Techniques

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to investigate the quantity of residual sulfuric acid and hydrophilicity of sulfonated-PEEK after different surface cleaning techniques. A PEEK group and five other etched-PEEK(SPEEK) groups were cleaned with five various techniques; deionized water immersion, ultrasonic-immersion in deionized water, pure acetone, 6%wt sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and 10% cocamido propyl betain solution (CAPB). The quantity of residual sulfuric acid were examined using spectrophotometer. Contact angle measurement was done with goniometer. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis was applied to investigate the specific chemical characteristic. One-way ANOVA following by Tukey’s multiple comparisons were tested (p < 0.05). The results revealed that pure acetone immersion significantly showed the lowest turbidity (p < 0.001). ATR-FTIR confirmed the present of sulfonate groups in SPEEK specimens after cleaning. The most hydrophilic group was ultrasonic immersion but not significantly different from other groups in SPEEK (p> 0.05). In conclusion, pure acetone immersion was the most effective method in removing residual sulfuric acid. Further cleaning techniques exhibited the same hydrophilicity