Thermal behaviour stability of polyester and cotton/polyester graft copolymers obtained by direct radiation grafting of individual and mixed vinyl monomers

The thermal behaviour of polyester (PET) and polyester/cotton fabric graft copolymers with individual and mixed vinyl monomers prepared by the method of direct radiation grafting has been investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The kinetic parameters, activation energy and order, of the rmal decomposition of these graft copolymers have been determined using a s ystematic procedure based on the Anderson and Freeman method. It was found that the thermal stability of both polyester and cotton/polyester fabrics, as indicated by the value of the activation energy of the thermal decomposi tion, was greatly improved by radiation grafting of either individual monom ers or comonomer mixtures. However, grafting of acrylonitrile (AN) increase s the thermal stability of polyester fabric much more than cotton/polyester fabrics. Also, grafting of individual AN and styrene (S) onto either polye ster or its blend with cotton improves the thermal stability rather than gr afting both fabrics with comonomer mixtures of AN, S and acrylamide (AAm). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.