A comparative study of the effect of Ni9+ and Au8+ ion beams on the properties of poly(methacrylic acid) grafted gum ghatti films

• The effect of 120 MeV Ni9+ and Au8+ ion beams irradiation on grafted hydrogel was studied.
• XRD pattern shows a decrease in intensity of peak position with increase in ions fluence.
• FTIR spectrum shows an overall reduction in intensity of typical bands.
• The decrease in IDT and FDT shows thermal changes in the grafted hydrogel.

A systematic comparative study was carried out for the induced changes in the chemical, structural, morphological and thermal properties of poly(methacrylic acid) grafted gum ghatti i.e. [Gg-cl-poly(MAA)] material by irradiation of 120 MeV Ni9+ and Au8+ ions at various fluences ranging from 3×1011 to 3×1012 ions/cm2. The degradation of the material was observed after ion irradiation. A significant loss of crystallinity and change in the crystallite size was observed in irradiated samples of Gg-cl-poly(MAA). The changes in chemical properties and surface morphology were observed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy respectively. The magnitude of the effect of the irradiation was observed to be greater in the case of Au8+ ions irradiation than those of Ni9+ ions irradiation due to the high electronic energy loss of the Au8+ ions in the grafted samples.