Abstract: Oxide layers on metal surfaces adversely affect processability and material properties in many industrial applications. While several plasma-based approaches for deoxidation were investigated in the past, oftentimes they either work under conditions expensive to create or need a long time for deoxidation. The deoxidation effect of a non-thermal dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma in an Ar/H2 gas mixture at 100 hPa and 400 °C was investigated on oxidized copper, iron and chromium surfaces. The chemical structure of surfaces before and after the deoxidation procedure was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results revealed that the metal oxide layers on copper and iron surfaces were almost completely reduced after 10 minutes of plasma treatment, thereby exposing bare metallic surface states. Chromium surface oxides were only partly removed after deoxidation process without notable reduction in oxide layer thickness, whereas the surface compounds changed from Cr(OH)3 and CrO3 to mostly Cr2O3.

For submission at Surface and Coatings Technology.