Electron irradiation effect of polyurethane using coincidence doppler-broadening spectroscopy

Full text: To understand the electron irradiation effects on polymer, polyether-urethane (ETPU) samples of 2mm in thickness and 10mm in diameter were irradiated by a 1.8MeV electron beam with beam current of 3 ma at room temperature. The irradiated doses are 5 kGy, 10 kGy, 15 kGy, 30 kGy, 100 kGy and 150 kGy. ETPU was manufactured by mixing PTMG-100, TDI-100 and MOCA. The momentum density distributions (MMDs) of electrons taking part in the annihilation processes of positron-electron pairs in ETPU have been measured by coincidence Doppler-broadening spectroscopy (CDBS). By presenting the ratio of the counts in every channel of the measured CDB spectrum to the corresponding counts from a reference spectrum (pristine ETPU), we observed that the change in MMDs is not significant for doses lower than 10 kGy. However, high momentum part of MMDs exhibit an obvious decrease for dose exceeding 15 kGy and then slowly down to steady with doses until 150 kGy. This valley occurs at around 15x103mοc and is well known as oxygen-specific, indicative of a less positron trapping by oxygen atoms in some samples of higher dose radiation. It is postulated that the radiation will break the crosslinkings, allowing the trace water and oxygen molecules to be released from the sample surface. Excess NCO groups in ETPU would crosslink with urethane and urea groups to produce allophanate and biuret groups. After receiving a certain amount of electron irradiation, crosslinked allophanate and biuret groups would produce degradation. Thus, residual water and oxygen trapped in ETPU by the crosslinking would diffuse out. However, the irradiation doses up to 150 kGy in this experiment are still not large enough to induce strong degradation of urethane and urea groups