This book chronicles the proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Polymer Surface Modification: Relevance to Adhesion held Newark, New Jersey, May 24–26, 1999.

Polymeric materials are intrinsically not very adhesionable and this necessitates their surface treatment to enhance their adhesion characteristics to other materials. Since the first symposium on this topic, held in 1993, there has been a tremendous R&D activity in devising novel or ameliorating the existing techniques for surface modification of polymers.

This volume contains a total of 32 papers, which have been rigorously peer-reviewed and suitably revised before inclusion in this volume. The book is divided into three parts as follows. Part 1: Plasma Surface Modification Techniques; Part 2: Other/Miscellaneous Surface Modification Techniques; and Part 3: General Papers. The topics covered include: plasma surface modification of a variety of polymers using various plasma gases; atmospheric plasma system; surface functionalization; ultrahydrophobic polymeric surfaces; metallization of plasma treated polymers; surface modification of polymers via molecular design for adhesion promotion; wet chemical methods for polymer surface modification; laser surface modification of various polymers; UV/ozone treatment; surface and interface studies of treated polymer surfaces by an array of techniques; bioadhesion of polymeric biomaterials to tissue; polymer-fiber systems; and plasma deposited coatings.

This book documents the proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on this topic, held in Toronto. The book is divided into two parts: Part 1: Surface Modification Techniques; Part 2: Adhesion Improvement to Polymer Surfaces.
Various ways to modify a host of polymer surfaces for a variety of purposes are covered in this book, with emphasis on latest developments. There is a tremendous current interest in devising new ways or ameliorating the existing techniques to modify polymer surfaces to attain desired characteristics because of its importance in a legion of technological areas, and all signals indicate that this interest will continue unabated. So this book should fill the need and should be a valuable addition to the literature.