New opportunities for the utilization of electron accelerators in polymer processing industries

A review on the current and emerging applications for electron beam processing shows that polymers dominate the industry. Electron beam treatment of polymers has been extensively researched to understand how to exploit and control the effects of ionizing radiation to design and manufacture commercially viable new products. Some examples of recently established and newly emerging applications with high potential for commercialization is reviewed in this paper under the subtitles of crosslinking, curing, grafting and chain scissioning. (author)