Radiation-induced graft copolymerization of vinyl monomer onto polyolefin polymeric substrate: preparation and characterization

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Military Technical Collage, Cairo, Egypt.

2 Radiation Chemistry Department, National Center for Radiation Research and Technology, P.O.Box 29 , Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Abstract
In this work, the synthesize of graft copolymers containing a functional group (carboxylic group) through mutual radiation grafting method for acrylic acid monomer onto high/ low density polyethylene substrate was investigated. The optimum conditions for radiation grafting were studied. In this regard, the effect of solvent type, monomer concentration, inhibitor concentration and irradiation dose on the grafting yield was determined.Some selected properties of the prepared graft copolymers were studied to illustrate the possibility of practical use in the industrial applications such as: water desalination, ion exchange, separation……etc. These properties were: water uptake, mechanical andelectrical propertiesandthe structure of the grafted membranes were investigated using Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) analysis. The optimum conditions for mutual radiation grafting were achieved using acetone as asolvent,FeCl3as inhibitor with concentration 0.1 % (wt/wt),acrylic acid as monomer with concentration 30 % (wt/wt) and irradiation dose 20 kGy.

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