In order to develop a more economical pretreatment method for electroless nickelplating,a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma at atmospheric pressure was used to improvethe hydrophilicity and adhesion of poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) nonwoven fabric.The properties of the PET nonwoven fabric including its liquid absorptive capacity (W_A),agingbehavior,surface chemical composition,morphology of the surface,adhesion strength,surfaceelectrical resistivity and electromagnetic interference (EMI)- shielding effectiveness (SE) were studied.The liquid absorptive capacity (W_A) increased due to the incorporation of oxygen-containingand nitrogen-containing functional groups on the surface of PET nonwoven fabric after DBD air-plasmatreatment.The surface morphology of the nonwoven fibers became rougher after plasmatreatment.Therefore,the surface was more prone to absorb tin sensitizer and palladium catalystto form an active layer for the deposition of electroless nickel.SEM and X-ray diffraction (XRD)measurements indicated that a uniform coating of nickel was formed on the PET nonwoven fabric.The average EMI-SE of Ni-plating of PET nonwoven fabric maintained a relatively stable value(38.2 dB to 37.3 dB) in a frequency range of 50 MHz to 1500 MHz.It is concluded that DBDis feasible for pretreatment of nonwoven fabric for electroless nickel plating to prepare functionalmaterial with good EMI-SE properties.
