ABS resin is widely used as a substrate for plating on plastic in applications such as vehicle parts and electrical devices. In general, the ABS is etched by a strong oxidizing agent consisting of H
2SO
4 and CrO
3 to obtain good adhesion between the substrate and deposited metal. In recent years, environmental pollution control has become an important worldwide concern, as we can see in documents such as the EU Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronics Equipment (WEEE) and the Restriction on Hazardous Substances (ROHS) . Therefore, an environmentally-friendly etching technology that does not require using hazardous chemicals is needed. We have focused on the use of titanium oxide (TiO
2), which is a photo-catalyst, as an alternative to chromic acid and have found that effective surface modification by UV light irradiation in the presence of TiO
2 is possible. In this report, we investigate the improvement of adhesion strength by varying the butadiene content in the ABS resin, and find that an adhesion strength of 1.0 kNm
-1 can be obtained in ABS with butadiene contents ranging from 15-30%. Using SEM and FE-TEM observations, we confirmed that the adhesion is derived from a nano-level anchor effect without roughening the polymer surface.
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