THERMOACTIVATIONAL SPECTROSCOPY IN THE HIGH-IMPACT POLYSTYRENE BASED COMPOSITE FILMS

Abstract

The investigation of the relaxation processes in the high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) films filled with 2, 4, 6 vol.% of titanium dioxide (TiO2) of the rutile modification are investigated by means of the thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) technique Three relaxation processes were observed for the composite HIPS films. The first peak (α-relaxation) appears at about 93 °C and represents the glass transition. The second ρ peak appears as the high-temperature side of the α peak so that these peaks are superimposed. It is caused by the release and subsequent motion of excess charges deposited during the electret preparation or the polarization process. A third process appeared at about 150 °C exists for composite films. The superimposed peaks were separated by means of the thermal cleaning technique. The subsequent application of the numerical methods (the Tikhonov regularization method) allowed to determine the activation energy of the second process and compare with the results obtained by means of the dielectric relaxation.

Keywords

• thermoactivational spectroscopy
• high impact polystyrene
• titanium dioxide