Influence of Modification on the ABS Plastics Using Atmospheric UV Irradiation as Plating Pretreatment

Plating on the plastic is one of the important technologies to decorate exterior automotive parts and electronic devices. Conventionally, etching solution contained carcinogen hexavalent chromium obtained high adhesion strength between metal film and plastic surface to decorative the plating. On the other hand, health damage and environmental pollution from waste etching solution are occurring. For the above reasons, development of chromium free pretreatment is an urgent problem to solve this issue. In this study, we concentrated the environmentally friendly surface modification process in which atmospheric UV treatment was used to investigate effect of surface morphology and state on the ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic. As a result, morphology of ABS surface was kept smooth after UV irradiation treatment. The conversion from hydrophobic to hydrophilic on the ABS surface state was confirmed by contact angle test and FT-IR spectra. Moreover, it was confirmed that appropriate amount of oxidation was necessary for metal plating on the ABS plastic, in order to obtain high adhesion strength between metal film and plastics surface.