Effect of Gamma Radiation on the Processability of New and Recycled PA-6 Polymers

Abstract

The growing quantities of plastic waste have raised environmental concerns, with almost a quarter of disposed plastics being sent to landfill. This has motivated research efforts into various recycling technologies to ease dependence on fossil resources, increasing circularity. Irradiation of various kinds, such as electron beam, beta and gamma rays, has been studied in the past as a way of revamping end-of-life polymer properties. The present work focuses on the effects of gamma radiation on the processability of new and recycled polymers, which is intimately linked with their rheological properties. In this study, both virgin and recycled polymers were irradiated under different radiation doses and the effects of the radiation on their viscosity assessed and compared. Results were analyzed making use of different theoretical relationships, and the causes of the changes in rheology were investigated by means of various characterization techniques, such as GPC, FTIR, EPR and DSC. Finally, the rheological curves of all samples were fitted to the Ostwald–de Waele relationship and the dependence of its parameters on the absorbed dose fitted to a function.

Evaluation of Cross-Linked Polyamide 6 Micro-Indentation Properties: TAIC Concentration and Electron Radiation Intensity

“…Studies [ 15 , 16 ] have shown that irradiation can lead to improved mechanical properties, and that the addition of cross-linking agent, e.g., TAIC, enhances this effect. These studies confirm the findings presented in this work.…”

The Fabrication of Amine‐Incorporated Zinc Complex/Carbon Dot Composite Electrodes Using Gamma Irradiation for High‐Performance Supercapacitors

“…Gamma irradiation has been employed in many applications, including radiotherapy, sterilization, microbial decontamination, and material modification. When gamma rays make contact with the materials, several events take place, such as structural changes, bond breaking, free radical creation, cross‐linking, and chain scission [39–41] . Although gamma irradiation has been used to prepare or modify a number of materials for various applications, its use in the supercapacitor field is rare, generally centralized to the modification of carbon‐based materials, [42–44] and a few inorganic materials [45–46] .…”

“…When gamma rays make contact with the materials, several events take place, such as structural changes, bond breaking, free radical creation, cross-linking, and chain scission. [39][40][41] Although gamma irradiation has been used to prepare or modify a number of materials for various applications, its use in the supercapacitor field is rare, generally centralized to the modification of carbon-based materials, [42][43][44] and a few inorganic materials. [45][46] We recently reported the use of gamma irradiation to incorporate the carbon dots with ethylenediamine (EDA) and the resulting carbon dots composited with ZnO yielded a significant improvement in the specific capacitance and cycling stability of the supercapacitors.…”