Study on grafting glycidyl methacrylate onto HDPE membranes by pre-irradiation graft copolymerization

Glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) was grafted onto HDPE membranes by pre-irradiation method with 1.8 MeV E-beam and a kind of membranes having reactive epoxy groups was successfully synthesized. Effects of monomer concentration, reaction temperature and time and irradiation dose on the grafting yield were studied. Composition, thermo-property and surface morphology of the grafted membranes were studied by FTIR, DSC and Tapping-mode AFM, respectively. The FTIR measurements proved the synthesized copolymer is HDPE-g-GMA. The DSC results indicated the grafted HDPE's melting temperature (Tm) and heat of fusion (ΔHf(HDPE)) which was reduced with increasing grafting yield. The AFM images indicated that surface of the HDPE-g-GMA membranes was rougher than the virgin HDPE. (authors)