A Sprayable and Visible Light Rapid-Cured Strippable Film for Surface Radioactive Decontamination

Strippable film is effective for removing radioactive contamination. However, it still has some limitations, such as the long curing time (about 30 min~24 h) and the requirement of organic solvents. To address these issues, we report a simple protocol to prepare strippable decontamination films using liquid polybutadiene (LPB) and tert-butyl acrylate (TBA) as the raw materials without solvent and using camphorquinone/ethyl 4-dimethylaminobenzoate (CQ/EDB) as a photoinitiator, where the film was formed under household LED panel light or daylight irradiation for about 540 s. After a thorough study of viscosity, real-time Fourier transform infrared (RT-FTIR spectra), gel and volatile organic compound (VOC) contents, mechanical properties and decontamination efficiency, the optimum composition and curing conditions were determined for the decontamination strippable film. VOC content is as low as 12.7 +/- 0.7% and the resultant strippable film exhibits good mechanical performances with a tensile strength of up to 5.4 +/- 0.4 MPa and elongation of up to 66.6 +/- 13%. Most important, the decontamination efficiencies of this strippable film for (CsCl)-Cs-133 on glass, ceramic and metal surfaces reach up to 98.1%, 94.3% and 97.6%, respectively.

Automated summary

A simple protocol to prepare strippable decontamination films using liquid polybutadiene and tert-butyl acrylate as raw materials without solvent is reported, where the film was formed under household LED panel light or daylight irradiation. The resultant strippable film exhibits low volatile organic compound content, good mechanical performances, and high decontamination efficiency.