Radiation-induced graft copolymerization of binary monomer mixture containing acrylonitrile onto polyethylene films

Graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN)/acrylic acid (AA), acrylonitrile (AN)/methacrylic acid (MA), and acrylonitrile (AN)/glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) onto pre-irradiated polyethylene (PE) films were studied. The effect of reaction conditions such as solvents, additives, and monomer composition on the grafting yields was investigated. The extent of grafting was found to increase with increasing sulfuric acid concentration when sulfuric acid as an additive was added to the grafting solution. In AN/AA mixture: the proportion of acrylonitrile in the copolymer increased with an increasing AN component in feed monomers. On the other hand, in AN/MA mixture, acrylonitrile component in copolymer was very slight in spite of the increase AN component in feed monomers. In the AN/GMA mixture, the proportion of acrylonitrile in the copolymer increased with increasing acrylonitrile component in AN/GMA feed monomer. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.