Impact of gamma irradiation on porosity and pore distribution of poly [ethylene-oxide] films: correlation with dielectric and microstructural properties

The structure and morphology of polymers are significantly altered upon exposure to high energy gamma irradiation either through bond breakage i.e. scission or cross-linkage. The present article reports the influence of gamma radiation (1–20 kGy) on the distribution of molecular weight and porosity of the films prepared using irradiated and unirradiated poly-[ethylene oxide] (PEO) powder. The PEO films exhibit pore dimension in the range of 20–500 nm. Selective irradiation is capable of tailoring the pore-size and reducing the multimodal trait to uni-or bimodal upon high energy perturbation. The porosity of PEO films is determined from both 2D-pore surface calculation from SEM images and compared with 3D-BET porosity. Correlation is established among dielectric constant (ε′) and porosity. The magnitude of ε′ increases sharply towards low frequency due to electrode polarization effects. Relaxation time is found to be highest and comparable for 1 and 10 KGy. With increase in irradiation dose, scission is predominant, owing to which smaller polymer fragments are produced which are able to follow fast frequency regime and thereby relax at lesser time.