Biomaterials for Bone Regeneration

Cold plasma surface modifi cation 219

The major difference between plasma polymerization and plasma graft-

ing is that plasma polymerization coats the substrate rather than cova-

lently binding species to the modi ed polymer surface (Barry et al ., 2005).

Therefore, if one is using the same monomer, the plasma-polymerized poly-

mers will show different chemical and physical properties as compared to

polymers obtained using a conventional synthesis method.

The most frequently used monomer in plasma polymerization on bio-

degradable polymers is allylamine (Barry et al ., 2005; Carlisle et al ., 2000;

Guerrouani et al ., 2007) to create surfaces with high hydrophilicity (WCA

of 20 ° or lower) due to the presence of amine groups.

As mentioned ...