Abstract
This work studies and compares the degradation performance of two different types of blown extruded films of low density polyethylene films used as greenhouse covers. The first one is LDPE (B24/2) supplied by ENIP Skikda and the other one is LDPE (2100 T N00W) supplied by SABIC, Saudi Arabia. Both films are commonly used in Algeria as greenhouse covers. The films were exposed outdoors over a period of 8 months for natural ageing. XRD and DSC analysis were conducted to characterize the thermal properties of the materials and compare between their degradation behaviors. The results revealed that the degradation resistance of LDPE (B24/2) is better than LDPE (2100T N00W) in term of their degree of crystallinity. Keywords: Natural Ageing, LDPE (B24/2); LDPE (2100 T N00W); Degree of Crystallinity, XRD; DSC.
Highlights
Polyethylene (PE) is one of the mostly studied and exploited polymers due to its characteristics and wide range of applicability [1,2,3,4,5]
It can be observed that peaks of fusion of LDPE 2100 T N00W films are larger and sharper than those of LDPE B24/2 which can be related to the rate of material crystallinity
The results of DSC and X ray Diffractometry (XRD) regarding the degree of crystallinity are very close
Summary
Polyethylene (PE) is one of the mostly studied and exploited polymers due to its characteristics and wide range of applicability [1,2,3,4,5]. Low density polyethylene films has a big demand on its use in agriculture field as greenhouse cover [11,12,13,14,15]. They have several appropriate characteristics (lightness transperancy), its exposure to UV radiations leads to a dramatical loss in its properties (mechanical, chemical and morphological) due to the oxidation of its initial molecular structure [16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. The techniques conducted to follow the evolution of the crystallinity degree for both materials were the Differential Scanning Calorimetric DSC ( thermal method) and the X-ray Diffraction analysis XRD (an optical method) [23,24,25]
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