Radiation crosslinking and flame retardancy of Poly (butylene terephthalate)

Engineering plastics like Poly (butylene terephthalate) due to their desirable properties have various industrial applications. Neat PBT is highly combustible, so it is necessary to improvesignificantly its fire retardancy to meet the fire safety requirements. [1, 2] Radiation-induced crosslinking is one ofthe suitable methods to crosslink polymers because of its advantages in comparison with chemical methods. Radiationcrosslinking occurs at room temperature or at temperature upto about 60 °C. This pure physical process is technically and economically feasible, since after execution of this method noresidues of chemical substances exist, while there are some residues after chemical solutions [3- 5]. In this study we haveinvestigated the effect electron beam radiation-induced crosslinking in the presence of Triallyl cyanurate on various properties of PBT.