'SELECTIVE FUNCTIONALIZATION OF NANOCHANNELS OF TRACK-ETCHED PET MEMBRANES'

CONSTANZA AGUIAR; GRASSELLI, M.; SOTO ESPINOZA, S.L.

Moscu

Simposio; IRaP 2018 Ionizing Radiation and Polymers symposium; 2018

IRaP

Track-etched membranes are a special kind of membranes prepared by swift-heavy ion bombardment of polymeric films. Latent tracks in the polymer made by particle bombardment are subsequently etched to reach nanopores (or nanochannels). Selective modification of the nanochannels can be done by grafting polymerization initiated by remnants radicals (GPIRR) available on the pore surface. This latter method has been developed onto swift heavy ion irradiated PVDF and PP foils and, in a previous work of our research group, this technology has been extended to PET foils [1]. However, most of the remnant free-radicals available have a minute-scale lifetime.In this work it is described the existence of stable radicals which are able to initiate the grafting polymerization of glycidylmethacrylate (GMA), in the internal wall of the nanochannels, independent of the etching process. Polymerization is initiated by increasing the temperature to 90 oC in N2 atmosphere. The high sensitivity of fluorescent labeling technique using fluorescein allows to follow and characterize the grafting process. The grafted poly(GMA) was isolated by membrane hydrolysis and characterized by FT-IR. AFM and SEM pictures show a minor changes in the pore diameter of grafted membranes. Peroxide radicals were also detected in the etched membranes using specific fluorescence reagent. References: [1] S.L. Soto Espinoza, et al., Radiat. Phys. Chem. 94, 72 (2014)