Kinetic Study of the Effect of Plasticization on Photodegradation of Polystyrene Solid Films

The effects of UV-irradiation on stability of pure and blended polystyrene films with phthalate and terephthalate plasticizers were studied in presence of air. UV-visible, fluorescence and FT-IR techniques were used to study the photodegradation of irradiated polystyrene films. Increase of irradiation times of polystyrene films caused an increase in the intensity of the main absorption band and the increase in the intensity of a new absorption band at longer wavelength, thus indicating a possibility of photo degradation of polystyrene chains. The influence of added plasticizers, dimethyl terephthalate, diethyl terephthalate, dioctyl terephthalate, dioctylphthalate, and dibutyl phthalate on photo-quenching of the polymer fluorescence band was also investigated, and found to increase the photodegradation processes in polymeric chains. On the other hand, the intensity of excimer and monomer fluorescence bands maxima was also found to decrease with a small red shift with the increase in irradiation times. These changes may be attributed to the formation of new photo-products resulted from the photodegradation of irradiated polymeric chains. The photo- quenching rate constant was found to increase with the increase of the molar mass and bulkiness of the used plasticizers and to increase with the increase in irradiation time. The rate constant of the photo quenching process was found to decrease with the increase in the percent of added plasticizers, indicating that the added plasticizers might act as UV-absorbers which inhibited the photodegradation process. The analysis of the FT-IR spectra of the irradiated and nonirradiated samples showed a noticeable formation of new broad band centered at 1727 cm-1, and its intensity was found to increase with the increase in irradiation time and also with the increase in the amount of added plasticizer. In addition, the observed increase in the intensities of the carbonyl and hydroxyl absorption regions of the FT-IR spectra provided evidence for the photodegradation as well as photo-oxidation of polymeric chains.