Effect of radiation chemical treatment on sisal fibers I. Radiation induced grafting of ethyl acrylate

摘要

AbstractRadiation induced graft copolymerization of ethyl acrylate onto sisal fibers was investigated. It was fond that the percent added‐on of ethyl acrylate to sisal fibers was prohibitively low when using the direct grafting method due to excessive hompolymerization. The preirradiation method was found to be invalid for improving the grafting content. In the presence of small amounts of styrene (St) the copolymerization can be achieved with little homopolymer formation by the direct grafting technique. The presence of sulfuric acid in the grafting solution enhances the grafting of styrene–ethyl acrylate comonomer to sisal fibers. the effect of different solvents, monomer concentration, and irradiation doses were followed. Sisal fibers were treated with sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, and combined treatment of both of them. The effect of these treatments on the grafting content was investigated. The grafting yield decreased when sisal fibers were subjected to alkali treatment under tension. However, sisal fibers pretreated with 0.4Nsulfuric acid showed a slight increase in the grafting yield over the untreated samp