Impact of Electron Beam Irradiation on Thermoplastic Polyurethanes Unraveled by Thermal Field-Flow Fractionation

The impact of electron beam irradiation on thermoplastic polyurethane material was studied for both an aliphatic and an aromatic polyurethane with equal amount of hard and soft segments. Irradiation doses up to 300 kGy at room temperature and at 100 °C were applied. Changes in chemical structure, molar mass and size were assessed using infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, size exclusion chromatography and thermal field flow fractionation. Material alterations were correlated with trends regarding to degradation, crosslinking or branching changes. Thereby, limits of characteri-zation by size exclusion chromatography are addressed and amended by thermal field-flow fractionation studies. In addition, a thermophoretic analysis has been carried out complementary to the portfolio of analytical methods applied in this work.