Radiation grafting of different monomers onto PP foils irradiated with a 25 MeV proton beam

Abstract

The radiation induced graft polymerisation is a well known method to obtain new materials. Until recently only conventional radiation sources, such as 60Co and electron beams were used. Moreover, part of the damage induced in polymers by heavy ions can produce active sites (peroxides and hydroperoxides) useful to initiate grafting reactions. In this way, the damage induced in polypropylene (PP) by a 25 MeV proton beam was used to initiate grafting reactions by the peroxide method. So, polymer surface modification was obtained by grafting different monomers onto PP films. The present work shows the grafting yield of acrylic acid, methyl methacrylate and styrene as a function of proton fluency and dose. The experimental points obtained by grafting PP foils were fitted according to the equations deduced supposing the target theory