Thermocatalytic Degradation of Low Density Polyethylene Films at Artificial Aging Treatment under Lower Temperature

Low density polyethylene (LDPE) films added thermal catalyst were investigated at artificial aging time of 0, 10, 20, and 30 days, respectively. The samples obtained were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), gel permeation chromatograph (GPC) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). It shows that the surface of film was destroyed via thermocatalytic reactions at lower temperature. In addition, the changes of chemical groups were also observed in the thermocatalytic degradation process. Thus, the validation to the thermocatalytic route has been confirmed over lower temperature excitation. It is hoped that our work may provide a new insight into the degradation of polymeric films at lower temperature.