The physical and chemical properties of gamma ray irradiated polymer electrolyte films

The physical and chemical properties of Gamma ray irradiated polymer electrolyte (PEO-CdCl2) films have been investigated. The FT-IR result evidenced the degradation due to chain scission/cross linking in the irradiated films. The DSC and TGA results show that thermal stability and crystallinity are significantly decreased in irradiated films. The optical micrograph image shows the size of spherulite structure and surface roughness found to be decreased with increasing the irradiation dose. The increase in the optical absorption and shifts toward higher wavelength side was observed in the irradiated film. Also optical band gaps (Eg), Urbach energy is estimated and found to be decreased, meanwhile the number of carbon atoms in cluster increased with the dose. The changes of dielectric permittivity, AC conductivity and optical band gap after irradiation were attributed due to degradation. The high conductivity of 1.156×10−4Scm−1 observed in the 150kGy irradiated film; it was about to order magnitudes higher than that of non-irradiated film. The electric modulus results were depicts the relaxation time (τ) found decreased and broadening of peaks signifies it is the Non-Debye relaxation behavior. These obtained results reveal that there is a possibility of improving physical properties polymer electrolyte and it may open up various opportunities to use these materials in different applications. •Films were irradiated with Gamma ray with varying doses of 50, 100 and 150kGy.•Gamma ray induced changes in physical & chemical properties of polymer electrolyte.•Change in crystallinity of the films has been confirmed from the DSC/TGA analysis.•Well improvement in dielectric permittivity and conductivity after irradiation•γ-Irradiation is simple & effective route to obtain highly conductive polymer films.