Chemical damage and aging of ion bombarded PPS

Thin foils of commercial grade polyphenylene sulfide (PPS), 2 mu m thick, w ere bombarded with energetic H+ (300 keV), He+ (350 keV), B+ (350 keV) and Ar++ (700 keV) ions at fluences ranging from 10(12) to 10(15) ions/cm(2). F ourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Rutherford backscattering an alysis (RBS) and chemical elemental analysis (CHN) were performed to evalua te the chemical changes induced by ion bombardment in the polymeric samples . It was verified that the S-S and C-S acyclic bonds were more susceptible to ion bombardment, and the aromatic ring bonds are the most resistant ones . The effective modification radii for the bond breaking and recombination processes were extracted. The aging of bombarded PPS was monitored and oxyg en and nitrogen uptake increased linearly with rime. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.