Possible use of bisphenol-a polycarbonate in radioactive waste embedding

Frequent use of bisphenol-a polycarbonate in daily life results with a huge amount of polycarbonate waste. The proper utilization of this waste would be an environmental friendly approach. As polymeric materials are candidate materials for radioactive waste embedding, having an aromatic structure within the main chain, the bisphenol-a polycarbonate is a candidate material to be used as an embedding matrix for the confinement of low and intermediate level radioactive waste. This possibility would partly solve the problem of huge amount of waste generated due to the usage of polycarbonate. In this study, the possibility for the usage of bisphenol-a polycarbonate in radioactive waste management was investigated regarding to radiation stability and resistance. For that purpose, changes in the properties of polycarbonate irradiated with different doses were determined. Irradiations, which were carried out for the duration of more than 8 months with an initial dose rate of 993 Gy/h, ended with a total irradiation dose of 4341 kGy to the samples. A detailed characterization of irradiated polycarbonate samples were performed by tensile, DMA, TGA, ATR-FTIR, AFM, EDX and SEM tests. The modifications within the polymer matrix have been reported. The total dose at which bisphenol-a polycarbonate could resist regarding to mechanical properties was determined. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.