Artificial ageing of polymeric insulation jackets is routinely performed in order to assess end-of-life material characteristics. Practical constraints including high temperatures/ short times ageing treatments lead to strong influence of diffusion-limited oxidation (DLO) resulting in unreliable life-time predictions. This study proposes a new experimental approach to the investigation of cable insulation ageing, exploiting analytical techniques capable of resolving chemistry at the length scale relevant for DLO (nano-microscale). When studying the potential effects of DLO using time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) sample preparation becomes crucial. This paper presents the development of a methodology to generate suitable specimens to investigate the DLO effect using ToF-SIMS. A reference polymeric material has been thermally aged in various DLO conditions. Cross sections of aged samples were generated using three different methods. In order to assess the most suitable approach for this study, cross-section topography were scanned using a profilometer and the surface chemistry was investigated using ToF-SIMS together with multivariate analysis methods.
A methodology to investigate heterogeneous oxidation of thermally aged cross-linked polyethylene by ToF-SIMS / Jorge Bañuls-Ciscar, Francesco Fumagalli, Ana Ruiz-Moreno, François Rossi, Giacomo Ceccone, Davide Fabiani, Simone Vincenzo Suraci. - In: SURFACE AND INTERFACE ANALYSIS. - ISSN 0142-2421. - ELETTRONICO. - 52:12(2020), pp. 6848.1178-6848.1184. [10.1002/sia.6848]
A methodology to investigate heterogeneous oxidation of thermally aged cross-linked polyethylene by ToF-SIMS
Davide Fabiani;Simone Vincenzo Suraci
2020
Abstract
Artificial ageing of polymeric insulation jackets is routinely performed in order to assess end-of-life material characteristics. Practical constraints including high temperatures/ short times ageing treatments lead to strong influence of diffusion-limited oxidation (DLO) resulting in unreliable life-time predictions. This study proposes a new experimental approach to the investigation of cable insulation ageing, exploiting analytical techniques capable of resolving chemistry at the length scale relevant for DLO (nano-microscale). When studying the potential effects of DLO using time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) sample preparation becomes crucial. This paper presents the development of a methodology to generate suitable specimens to investigate the DLO effect using ToF-SIMS. A reference polymeric material has been thermally aged in various DLO conditions. Cross sections of aged samples were generated using three different methods. In order to assess the most suitable approach for this study, cross-section topography were scanned using a profilometer and the surface chemistry was investigated using ToF-SIMS together with multivariate analysis methods.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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