Etching and technical parameter of polymer film for manufacture of nuclear track membrane

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to investigate the etching and the technical parameter of polymer films for the manufacture of nuclear track membrane. The polycarbonate film was stored in the thermal column tube and the irradiated neutron at different time. The result shown the optimized time to irradiate neutron of polycarbonate was 20 seconds. Two types of polymer (polycarbonate and polyethylene terephthalate) were the irradiated neutron and the irradiated film which were etched in the chemical etchant by the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and the potassium hydroxide (KOH) respectively. The technical parameters etched track all polymer films which were investigated by the optical microscopy. Besides that, it was found that the optimized time, the temperature of chemical and the concentration of chemical etched track on two types of polymer film that were 60 and 60 minutes, 60 and 60 °C and 6 and 4 mol/L respectively. At this condition, two types of polymer film were measured by track size. The results found that track size of polymer had about 1 to 2 micrometer. The experimental results indicated that the nuclear track could be used in the filter membrane industries.