Abstract
At present, ion beam technology is one powerful technique to improve the physico-chemical properties of polymeric material. In this work, ultra high molecular weight polyethylene samples were bombarded with 1 MeV He-ion beam at fluences ranging from 1×1013 to 5×1014 ions/cm2. The changes in the chemical composition of the treated layer caused by the ion beam were investigated. The hydrogen escapes due to the ion beam irradiations were measured by the nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) technique using the 1H(15N, αγ)12C reaction. The oxygen uptake has been studied by the Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) techniques. The partial and total mass attenuation coefficients of photons at energies 81, 356, 511 and 1332 keV were estimated using the XCOM program (version 3.1). The obtained results showed that the hydrogen release was increasing with an increase in ion fluence. Moreover, important oxygen uptake of bombarded samples was also observed. These effects led to significant improvements in the surface characteristics of the treated materials such as changes in the shielding parameters. The changes in the mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) were calculated relying on the incoming photon energies and the atomic concentrations of the elements that are present in the target material. The total atomic cross-sections and effective atomic numbers were calculated by using the data of the total mass attenuation coefficients. A decrease in both the total atomic cross-section and effective atomic numbers was noticed with an increase in the ion beam fluence.
•The influence of He-ion on the surface characteristics of polyethylene was investigated.•A remarkable increase in the hydrogen release from the polymer surface was observed.•An increase in oxygen uptake with increasing ion fluence was also detected.•Oxygen-functional groups generate on the polyethylene surface after ion beam bombardment.•Ion bombardment technique induced alterations in the composition and shielding parameters of polyethylene.