Modification of structural, thermal and optical properties of PC-PET/CdSe NCP using gamma radiation

Abstract

In the current study we synthesized a nanocomposite (NCP) from polycarbonate/polybutylene terephthalate (PC-PET) blend and CdSe nanoparticles (NPs) through ex-situ casting methodology. CdSe NPs were synthesized using thermolysis technique with N2 gas flow. X-ray diffraction data for CdSe NPs are reported. The Rietveld refinement indicated that the synthesized CdSe acclimatizes cubic zinc blends constitution of a lattice parameter 6.057 Å and an average grain size of 2 nm. The PC-PET/CdSe NCP samples were irradiated by gamma doses between 20 and 230 kGy. The induced variations in the structure, thermal and optical properties of the gamma irradiated PC-PET/CdSe NCP have been illustrated by means of TEM, XRD, TGA, FTIR and UV–vis spectroscopes. The irradiation with doses in the range 50–230 kGy leads to the domination of crosslinking that improves the amorphous content. This increases the degradation temperature from 417 to 432 °C indicative of an enhancement in the thermostability of the NCP samples. Also, the optical band gap is reduced from 4.28 to 3.76 eV which is ascribed to the enhancement in the amorphous content of the irradiated PC-PET/CdSe NCP. This specifies that the gamma irradiation causes a more compactness of the NCP and leads to appropriate spreading of CdSe NPs within the PC-PET matrix. Additionally, the CIE approach was used to describe the colored samples. It is found that the PC-PET/CdSe NCP acquires color due to gamma doses, as the color intensity reached a remarkable color difference larger than 5 (14.9) which is a reasonable challenge in saleable reproduction on printing press.