Investigation demonstrates gamma irradiation influences crosslinking in EVA, highlighting its suitability for food packaging and electrical applications.
Polymer materials (plastics and elastomers) are widely used in applications involving ionizing radiation environmental exposure. Such rush in service conditions might promote significant material degradation. Here, we investigated gamma irradiation effects on poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA) (25 and 40 wt% vinyl acetate - VA) in the dose range of 5 – 30 kGy. This range is suitable for applications in food preservation and matches expected absorbed doses for nuclear power plants electrical cables and wires. EVA copolymers with 40 or 25 wt% VA predominantly underwent crosslinking effects promoted by gamma irradiation at dose of 10 kGy. Additional irradiation of EVA (25% VA) up to 30 kGy did not promote further alterations. Refractive index or thermal degradation under nitrogen atmosphere remained practically unaltered after gamma irradiation. Our findings suggest that EVA is a suitable material for irradiated food packaging films, and in electrical cable jacketing materials exposed to gamma radiation.
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Medeiros et al. (2025) studied this question.
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