Study of the effect of gamma irradiation on a commercial polycyclooctene I. Thermal and mechanical properties

A gamma radiation process for modification of commercial polymers is a widely applied technique to promote new physical, chemical and mechanical properties. Gamma irradiation originates free radicals able to induce chain scission or recombination of radicals, which induces annihilation, branching or crosslinking processes. The aim of this work is to research the structural, thermal and mechanical changes induced on a commercial polycyclooctene (PCO) when it is irradiated with a gamma source of 60Co at different doses (25-200 kGy). After gamma irradiation, gel content was determined by Soxhlet extraction in cyclohexane. Furthermore, thermal properties were evaluated before and after Soxhlet extraction by means of Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), as well as mechanical properties were measured by Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA). The results showed the variations of the properties depending on the irradiation dose. Finally, a first approach to evaluate qualitatively the shape memory behaviour of all irradiated PCO samples was performed by a visually monitoring shape recovery process.