Citation: Mazurchevici, S.-N.; Bialas, O.; Mindru, T.D.; Adamiak, M.; Nedelcu, D. Characterization of Arboblend V2 Nature Textured Surfaces Obtained by Injection Molding. Polymers 2023, 15, 406. https://doi.org/10.3390/ polym15020406 Academic Editor: Luigi Sorrentino Received: 28 November 2022 Revised: 3 January 2023 Accepted: 9 January 2023 Published: 12 January 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). polymers Article Characterization of Arboblend V2 Nature Textured Surfaces Obtained by Injection Molding Simona-Nicoleta Mazurchevici 1 , Oktawian Bialas 2 , Teodor Daniel Mindru 1 , Marcin Adamiak 2 and Dumitru Nedelcu 1,3, * 1 Machine Manufacturing Technology Department, Faculty of Machine Manufacturing and Industrial Management,“Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, 700050 Iasi, Romania 2 Silesian University of Technology, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland 3 Technical Sciences Academy of Romania, 010413 Bucharest, Romania * Correspondence: dnedelcu@tuiasi.ro Abstract: Surface texturing is an engineering technology used in order to improve the surface characteristic of plastic parts obtained by injection molding. Applying this process not only changes the part surface properties, but also its topography. The novel functionalities of plastic products become useful when other materials make contact with the textured surface. Of course, these characteristics may vary depending on the laser positioning, dimensions, and geometry of the texture. The present paper presents the surface characteristics obtained after the laser texturing of the Arboblend V2 Nature biodegradable polymer. Three distinct geometries were studied: hexagonal, square, and triangular, and different behaviors of them were highlighted during surface free energy (SFE) and contact angle (WCA) measurements: a hydrophobic character for square and hexagonal geometry with distilled water as the measure liquid, and a hydrophilic character with diiodomethane as the measure liquid; for triangle geometry, the contact angle measurements were impossible to extract because the drop turns into a flat puddle. Additionally, the friction coefficient varied depending on the geometry texture, with the lowest value being recorded by the sample with hexagonal geometry. The micro-indentation tests highlighted increased surface micro-hardness compared to the basic material. The possibility of use in the practice of textured surfaces is viable; thus, based on the obtained results, there is even the possibility to replace non-biodegradable polymers from different sectors of activity. Keywords: Arboblend V2 nature; surface texturing; WCA; microindentation; SEM 1. Introduction The laser surface texturing (LST) process uses laser beams focused on the surfaces to be processed, with beam diameter varying from a few to hundreds, and even thousands, of microns, with the process taking place in the air atmosphere [1]. However, the influence of the working atmosphere should not be neglected because the chemistry and wetting of the surfaces can be influenced. An example was studied by Pfleging who showed that by replacing He with an O 2 atmosphere, there is an important increase in the wettability ofpoly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) [2]. The wettability of materials can be controlled by the topography (roughness) of the surfaces. Thus, Wenzel [3] demonstrated the fact that the hydrophobic character of a surface is accentuated when the roughness of the surface increases, due to the fact that the liquid penetrates the cavities of the texture. Other researchers, such as Cassie and Baxter [4] started from the assumption that the liquid does not penetrate the textures, which means that air voids tend to increase the hydrophobic character independently of its wettability. Surfaces with high roughness are easier to analyze using this model, and those with low roughness should be analyzed according to the Wenzel model [5]. Polymers 2023, 15, 406. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15020406 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers