Diffusion Processes in Polymers under Irradiation; Polyvinyl Alcohol and CCl₄ System

Abstract

When the PVA film is irradiated in CCl₄, PVA is swollen and crosslinked. A Phenomenological theory is proposed for this experiment. The processes are considered that with the change of diffusion constant CCl₄ enters into PVA as the radiation dose increases, and the radicals from CCl₄ react upon PVA and cause crosslinking. The results of calculation agree reasonably with experiments, that is, the weight changes of swollen polymers against the total dose, the gel fraction changes and the viscosity average molecular weight changes in sol fractions against the total dose. Other various mechanisms that can be considered are discussed .