EPR investigation on radiation-induced graft copolymeryzation of styrene onto polyethylene: energy transfer effects

In this paper, energy transfer phenomena concerning the in-source graft copolymerization of styrene onto LDPE were investigated through the EPR analysis of the radical intermediates. The model solution experiments have shown a substantial deviation of the experimental G (radicals) values with respect to the additivity law, which reflect the negative effect of the styrene monomer concentration on the initiation rate of the graft copolymerization. The EPR measurements performed on polyethylene-co-styrene graft copolymers of various composition following low-temperature vacuum gamma irradiation have confirmed the decrease of the total radical yields with increasing the styrene concentration. The effect was partly attributed to the heterogeneity of the graft copolymer matrix and to the lack of molecular mobility in the solid state at low temperature, which prevents the attainment of the favourable geometrical configurations in intermolecular energy and charge transfer events.